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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23997139">Try, Try Again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briana_Dubs/pseuds/Briana_Dubs'>Briana_Dubs</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence - Iron Man 2, Endgame fix it, Endgame who?, F/M, Fix It Fic, Frostiron is Endgame, Iron Man 2 is a good movie and I will cite Don Cheadle as my source, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Only compliant with the first Iron Man and Incredible Hulk, Shenanigans, Time traveling Tony, i don't know her, oof, though, will follow a similar flow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:28:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,670</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23997139</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briana_Dubs/pseuds/Briana_Dubs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>----I am not original.----</p><p>- Tony tests out the time traveling tech in 2023 and ends up reliving some of the worst years of his life. Being back in the past, he makes changes and makes new decisions that impact the future. But for better or worse?-</p><p>--</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Rhodey" Rhodes &amp; Tony Stark, Loki/Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts &amp; Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>205</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. If I Wake Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“If I wake up and I’m back in New York, I’m going to personally kick you in the balls.” Tony’s message to Steve Rogers was a harsh one.</p><p>“Tony.”</p><p>“You’re not even a real captain,” Tony told him, scowling. He wasn’t sure how he got dragged into this mess, but here he was. It seemed as if every time the others needed his help- they just expected he would give it. It was the only time they ever showed up, after all. Being dragged into a time traveling nightmare was NOT on his list of things to do today.</p><p>“Just try, please.” Steve didn’t even sound like he was really pleading.</p><p>Turning his head, he said, “You know, I could be spending time with my daughter right now.”</p><p>“But you knew this was the right thing to do, so you came.”</p><p>Tony chose to ignore that little guilt trip. Plugging one last wire in, he stood up. “All right, how ‘bout we test this hunk of junk out?”</p><p>Hopping onto the platform, holding the Pym particles like Scott said, Tony sent the others a wink. “Beam me up, Scotty.”</p><hr/><p>He did not wake up in New York, shockingly enough.</p><p>No.</p><p>Instead, Tony found himself waking up in his Malibu mansion. The one he was sure had been destroyed by the whole Mandarin thing. He sat up in his bed with a frown, looking down at himself. Where was his suit? Where were the Pym particles?</p><p>“Oh, fuck.” He reached his hands up and dragged them down his face.</p><p>“<em>Sir?</em>” The soft buzzing voice of Jarvis startled him out of his misery.</p><p>“Shit! Oh, fuck, Jay?”</p><p>“<em>Yes, sir?</em>”</p><p>He could cry hearing that voice. Fuck. What year was it? “Nothing,” he said after Jarvis addressed him a third time. “Nothing, it’s just… Man, I think I just had the worst eight years of my life in one night.”</p><p>“<em>The Palladium poisoning does appear to be worsening, sir.</em>”</p><p>Oh, fuck. He was back for <em>that</em>? He opened his shirt to peer down and, sure enough, the all too familiar black lines were creeping over his skin. Fucking Christ. “This is just my luck,” he groaned to himself. Well, at least this time he knew how to fix that a hell of a lot faster.</p><p>“<em>Shall I remind you of your plan for the day, sir? You do have quite a lot to prepare for the Stark Expo.</em>”</p><p>Fuck, the Expo? Ah, shit, Vanko was during all this shit. He needed to find a way back to his own time, not deal with this mess.</p><p>“Later, Jay,” he said with a sigh, “First, can you bring up anything about a man named Ivan Vanko? I think my old man used to work with his dad.”</p><p>“<em>Yes, sir, according to my records, he did. If I may ask, why the sudden interest?</em>”</p><p>Tony felt like he was doing a lot of sighing. And cursing. Probably too much cursing. “His father must’ve been pretty old, huh? I think maybe we should send him some sort of care package…” Maybe it would be better if he went and saw Vanko in person instead. Put a bit of a delay on his life problems so he can find a way to get back home. Back to Pepper and Morgan…</p><p>In the end, he decided to go to Russia himself. Ugh, he had forgotten how obsolete his suits were back during this. What was this, Mark Six? Fuck. One of his baby babies.</p><p>After cancelling all meetings, and avoiding even looking at a picture of Pepper, he made the trip across the ocean. Finding Vanko was easier said than done, but he managed. The man was none too pleased to see him, though. His father had already died and he was currently working on the suit he would eventually use to attack him during the race.</p><p>Holding his hands up, Tony let his face plate retract. “Ivan Vanko?”</p><p>Vanko spat on the ground before looking at him. “Tony Stark,” he said, sounding bitter, “To what do I owe the visit of a god?”</p><p>“Oh, don’t even get me started on gods,” Tony huffed, “I just… Look… I found out about what happened with your father.” Vanko didn’t do much besides raise a brow at his words. “I know he helped my father build tech and he was sent back here. I’m assuming you both weren’t very happy with how things went down?”</p><p>“That is one word for it,” Vanko said, accent thick in every word. “What do you want, Stark? You want to make peace? Ease your conscience?”</p><p>“I want to make things right.” He let more of the suit begin to retract. “I can’t make things perfect, but your father deserves credit for helping design all of the things he did.”</p><p>“And you think your people will be <em>happy</em> that a <em>traitor</em> helped the ‘Great Howard Stark’ build bombs?” He was grinning at Tony now and it felt eerily familiar.</p><p>“If you could make God bleed, people would cease to believe in him, right?” Tony smiled himself when Vanko’s own smile widened. He sighed. “No, honestly, I think people are going to be pissed to find out the truth. That’s typically how Americans react to things like this.” He lowered his arms. “But I know enough about you to know that you’re a smart man who came from a smart father. I think, maybe the world could use someone like you and I’d really hate to see your talent wasted on trying to kick my stupid ass.”</p><p>Vanko laughed then and Tony heard the squawk of a bird. The Russian turned and took a white cockatoo out of a cage next to him, bringing it about to rest on his shoulder.</p><p>“Nice bird,” Tony commented. Vanko bowed his head a little at the compliment. “I’m sick anyway,” he said, figuring- why not just tell the guy who once nearly killed him? “I’ll probably have it figured out in a month or two, but where’s the fun in killing a man with poison running through his blood?”</p><p>By the time they finished their little talk, Tony had Jarvis ‘leak’ information to some of the press about Vanko’s father working with Howard. It would probably hurt Stark stocks, but honestly, he didn’t care. As soon as he was back in the future, he’d have this all fixed up. He agreed to put Vanko on his payroll if he agreed to never, ever work with Justin Hammer. Vanko had laughed and said, “His stuff’s shit.”</p><p>Tony officially liked him.</p><p>“Hey, if you want, you could even move to the states,” Tony smiled. “I’d probably avoid New York in a year, though. I’ve got a feeling some serious shit’s gonna go down there.” If he could laugh at his own terrible joke without making Ivan think he was completely crazy, he would have.</p><p>As soon as all was settled, he was speeding off in search of a one ‘Hank Pym.’</p><hr/><p>Hank Pym wouldn’t even see him.</p><p>He heard the word ‘Stark’ and he slammed the door in his face.</p><p>“I just need s few Pym particles and I’ll be out of your hair!”</p><p>Pym opened the door, shouting and spitting in rage. “Oh, so now you’re trying to steal my technology!? You’re <em>just like your <strong>father!</strong></em>” And the door was slammed in his face once again.</p><p>Groaning, Tony turned away. Okay- he could try again later. The time travel should work so that no matter how long he was gone here, he would be back to the same moment he left, right?</p><p>He winced as his chest ached. Fuck, he had forgotten how much the reactor hurt during this.</p><p>It took him a couple of hours, three chlorophyll shakes, and a gigantic mess in his workshop to create the new element he needed to replace the palladium.</p><p>“Jesus, Tony, what did you do to the living room?”</p><p>Tony very nearly shrieked at the sound of Pepper’s voice. Turning around, he let out a loud exhale. “Pep, fuck, don’t scare me like that.”</p><p>“Tony, you knocked out three walls!” Pepper was storming toward him, heels clicking as she went. Clipboard in hand, she looked just as good as he remembered. Fuck, this was such a shitty time for their relationship. He had fucked up so much of it.</p><p>“I was dying,” he told her, deciding this time, since there weren’t gonna be any consequences, to just be open and come clean.</p><p>Pepper’s fast paced steps halted instantly.</p><p>“You… you were what…?”</p><p>Tony carefully showed her the new reactor. He unbuttoned his shirt to show the horrible lines coming out of the old one, as well. He offered her a sheepish smile. “This lovely little thing that’s been keeping me alive? Was also killing me.”</p><p>“Jesus, are you all right?”</p><p>He nodded. “I will be once I put this new bad boy in. I made a whole new element to get this to work!”</p><p>Now Pepper looked completely baffled. “How- how did you do that? How would you <em>know</em> to do that?”</p><p>“Let’s just say it came to me in a dream!” Tony couldn’t hold back the laugh then.</p><p>Jarvis chose that moment to pipe in. “<em>Sir, if I may, you’ve thought up quite a few things you never previously had any interest in seemingly overnight. What sort of dream did you have last night?</em>”</p><p>“Would you believe me, Pep, if I said I was from the future?”</p><p>“………No.”</p><p>“And aliens come down from the sky in about a year and a half to try and take over New York!”</p><p>“Definitely no.”</p><p>“And you and I got married and we had a kid!”</p><p>“Kids? Tony, are you okay? Are you sure the- the <em>thing</em> killing you didn’t mess with your head?” Pepper was looking at him like he had three heads, speaking of. He pouted at her attitude. “It’s just. Tony, you’ve never talked about kids before. You’ve never even seemed like you <em>liked</em> kids.”</p><p>“Look, just because my old man was a shit father doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love our baby girl to the moon and back.”</p><p>“We have a girl?” Pepper looked shocked. “Since when? Tony, I don’t know if I want kids!”</p><p>“No, no, you didn’t,” he said, setting the reactor down. “For a long time you didn’t. But… things happened… the team kind of… fell apart and we just… fit together.”</p><p>“What <em>team?</em> Tony, you’re talking crazy.” She still had her clipboard in her hands. “Look, how about you… put that new thing in and we take a look at the people we could hire, okay? Nobody’s dying, nobody’s getting pregnant, and nobody’s having <em>any babies</em> right now, okay?”</p><p>Tony sighed. “All right, all right. It was a long shot anyway.” It took a few clicks to get the new reactor into place. He gagged as he put it in. “Ugh, it still tastes like coconut.”</p><p>“You hate coconut.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><hr/><p>As Pepper showed him profiles, Tony saw a familiar face walk into the room. He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh as the pretty young red head introduced herself as Natalia.</p><p>“Tony,” Pepper hissed in a warning tone.</p><p>Tony couldn’t help it though. “Oh, fuck, I forgot about you! Shit, how’s it been, Natasha?”</p><p>“Tony, her name is <em>Natalia</em>,” Pepper scolded. “She actually <em>just</em> told you.”</p><p>Natasha, for her part, was putting up a very convincing ‘confused and innocent’ act.</p><p>“Yeah, no,” Tony smirked and put his arm around the shoulder of the Black Widow. “This is Natasha Romanoff and Fury’s one-eyed ass sent her to check on my mental state.” He turned his head to leer in her face. “Which, is fabulous, by the way. You can give him that little message. I’m sure he’ll be oh so happy to hear about it.”</p><p>“Fury?” Pepper cocked her head to the side. “Is that the guy you told me about, who came to talk to you about your suits?” When Natasha’s head snapped to look at her with wide eyes, Pepper said, “Which, I knew nothing about.”</p><p>When Nat turned to look back at him, Tony winked at her. “How you doin’?”</p><p>“You’ve obviously been drinking,” Natasha said, lifting his arm off of her shoulders. Tony scoffed and muttered ‘just chlorophyll.’ “Miss Potts, I’m not sure if we should be discussing anything with him present.”</p><p>“Look, you don’t have to worry about a thing,” Tony said, “I already fixed our problem and once I can get back you won’t even remember I was here.”</p><p>Pepper made a face at him. “Tony, I really <em>am</em> starting to wonder if you’ve been drinking.” She turned her attention back to the other red head. “Natalia, I would love to talk to you in my office. How does that sound?”</p><p>As they walked away, Tony shouted, “Ask her to say something in Latin!” He laughed at the glare Natasha sent his way. Oh, this was <em>fun</em>. He should time travel and fuck with people more often.</p><p>He went downstairs and began training with Happy. He stayed there until Pepper came back down, saying, “I’m at least happy you didn’t try to flirt with her, but seriously Tony, what the <em>fuck</em> was that?”</p><p>“Look her up,” Tony said, dodging a swing from Happy. “She’s the Black Widow. Great spy. Russian, I think.” He paused, turned, and beamed at Pepper. “We should hire her!”</p><p>“I think I might,” Pep said, clearly annoyed by his antics. “She’s very professional and was very understanding of all your quirks.”</p><p>“My quirks make up 95% of my charm.” He stopped the fight and dangled over the ropes on the little boxing ring. “Do you think we could try and send a muffin basket to a Mister Hank Pym? I kinda pissed him off earlier today and I <em>really</em> need to get on his good side.”</p><p>“I’m not even going to ask what or who you did.”</p><p>Tony razzed at Pepper’s teasing. “Nothing like that, geeze. I just got off on the wrong foot with him and really need to fix things.”</p><p>“I’ll see what I can do, Tony…”</p><hr/><p>Pym sent the muffin basket back, though it looked like he <em>may</em> have set it on fire before he did so. Tony groaned when he saw it. “We’ll keep trying,” Pepper said, patting him on the back.</p><p>Natasha was already making herself at home in their routine after less than a day. She hadn’t been quite so keen in Tony’s memory. Oh well, when you completely bust a spy’s cover, they probably get twitchy.</p><p>“Say, Agent Romanoff, have they found Old Capsicle yet?” Tony snickered at the startled and angry look on her face when he spoke. “No? Ah well, Coulson will have to wait for his orgasm until later.”</p><p>“Tony, who the hell is Coulson?” Pepper huffed at him, agitated.</p><p>Tony grinned. “You know, I think he was the guy you had that meeting with during the whole Obie ordeal.”</p><p>“Oh, Phil!” Pepper smiled. “Right, I remember him. How do you know him, Natalia?”</p><p>“I don’t,” she answered. “The name doesn’t ring any bells.”</p><p>“Maybe it’ll ring a walkie talkie.”</p><p>Oh, this was so much <em>fun</em>.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Sell Out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Have I been listening to Dani California on loop for two hours while I write this? Yes. Yes I have.</p><p>Will I stop?<br/>Yes. Because I have to go to work at noon.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Looking at the calendar was like some sort of weird trip, honestly. Tony was staring at days he had already lived. He needed to get a hold of some of those Pym particles fast. He didn’t want to relive the birthday he saw coming up. “Well,” he moaned, “Maybe it won’t be that bad this time around… I’ve sort of dealt with Ivan and I’m not dying anymore, so maybe this time I won’t piss myself.”</p><p>Pepper came into the room after Jarvis announced her. He smiled at her and she huffed at him. “Tony, is there any particular reason the news is blowing up with stories about you and some Russian communist working together?”</p><p>He looked at the article she had pulled up on her little Stark Pad. Ivan sold him out, looked like. That was all right. He could deal with him trying to smear his reputation. “At least he’s not trying to kill me this time.”</p><p>“He’s tried to kill you before?” Pepper looked startled. “How do you even know this guy, Tony? I’ve never even heard of him.”</p><p>“Ah, his father worked with my old man,” he waved his hand at her. “Let’s just have me do an interview about all this shit. I’ll be able to fix it in no time.” He just wanted to brush it all under the rug.</p><p>“Is that such a good idea with how you’ve been acting lately?”</p><p>Tony just beamed at her and knew he’d won the argument. Pep called Natasha to help set up an interview and Tony got himself all dolled up.</p><p>The interviewer, some reporter chick he was pretty sure he had slept with in the past, asked him what he thought of all of this. He smirked in reply. “Oh, I’m fine with it,” he said. “I like Ivan Vanko. He’s a man after my own heart. And he’s got a <em>great</em> bird. Sits on his shoulder like a pirate and everything.”</p><p>“Mister Stark.”</p><p>“Seriously, though,” Tony cleared his throat. “I’d probably have done exactly this same thing a few years ago. I can understand why Ivan’s sold the story to the highest bidder. It really doesn’t bother me.”</p><p>“Well, what <em>does</em> bother you?” The reporter looked annoyed.</p><p>He looked right at the camera as he answered her. “Lies bother me.” He looked back at her with a bitter smile. “See, just recently I found out my old man worked with Ivan’s father to build weapons during the big wars. You know the ones. He even helped pop invent the arc reactor that I use to power this mansion. But Anton Vanko sold some of their weapons designs on the black market and dear old dad got him deported back to Russia for it. Turns out Obadiah Stane was doing the exact same thing, he just kept it a better secret. Hell, he might have even been the one doing it back then and just framed Anton.” The reporter looked surprised to hear him saying all this. “Point is,” Tony said, trying to get back on track, “I’ve been stabbed in the back by people who knew me better than I knew myself. I figure why not give a total stranger a second chance? It’s not like it could turn out any worse than things did in Afghanistan.”</p><p>“So, you’re perfectly fine working with someone who could be a traitor for all you know.”</p><p>“Ivan has pride,” Tony said, smiling. “If he sells me out or betrays me, at the very least I know he’ll be doing so with someone on our level.”</p><p>He could see Pepper looking ready to explode behind the reporter, but he was just smiling.</p><p>The reporter was blinking at him in shock. “You know, my birthday is coming up in about, oh, three days. Maybe this whole thing will be fixed by then and Ivan and I will be the best of pals. You are officially invited to my party, Ivan! And anyway, I work with traitors all the time. The trick is figuring out who is going to betray you <em>before they do it</em>.”</p><p>And with that, the interview was over and Pepper was whacking him upside the head with her Stark Pad. “Oww.”</p><p>“Tony, what the fuck is your problem? You’ve been acting really weird.”</p><p>“Pep, I’m fine. I just--.”</p><p>“I’m calling Rhodey.” And Pepper pulled out her phone and was walking away. He looked at Natasha, hoping maybe he’d have her support, but she was just looking at him with obvious suspicion. This part was decidedly less fun than the other stuff.</p><hr/><p>When Rhodey showed up, Tony had dropped to his knees. He had forgotten! Oh, fuck. He and Pepper were by his side in an instant, but the way he saw Rhodey rush over to him just made him start crying.</p><p>“Jesus, Pepper, I think it’s a good thing you called,” Rhodey said, looking over his head. Tony, sniffling and wiping his eyes against his sleeve, ended up just wrapping his arms around Rhodey’s legs.</p><p>It had been so long that Rhodey’s legs were in the crutches he built that he had completely forgotten there was a time where they weren’t like that. Oh, he was a shit friend. He forgot about all the horrible things he put Rhodey through.</p><p>“Oh, Rhodeybear, I am so sorry.” He looked up at his dearest and oldest friend. “I’m sorry for all the shit I ever did to you.” He hid his face for a second and thought better of it. He looked his friend in the eye. “You’ve always been there for me and I’ve been a really shitty friend to you.”</p><p>“Well, you did kind of put me on the spot with Senator Stern the other day, but Tones, you do that all the time.” Rhodey was rubbing a hand against his shoulder.</p><p>Tony shook his head, still sniffling. “No, no, I’m a fuckup.”</p><p>“Tones…”</p><p>He smiled up at him. “How ‘bout I let you try out my new suit. I think it’s the mark three. Or seven. I forget, but you could fly it around if you want.”</p><p>“Tony, are you all right?” Pepper was flabbergasted by the way he was behaving. “You don’t even let most people <em>look</em> at the suits and now you’re okay with Rhodey just flying away in one?”</p><p>It took him a minute to get back to his feet. He was still a little sniffly, but the tears had stopped rolling down his face now. “He’s not gonna fly away, Pep. This is Rhodeybear, we’re talking about.” He patted his friend on the shoulder. “If there’s anyone I trust with the suits- it’s this guy. And maybe you once I make a suit for a lady,” Tony said, smiling at Pepper and her startled expression.</p><p>“Whaddya say, Rhodes? Wanna test out those scary swords the government wants to get their hands on so bad?” Rhodey laughed at his joke, but he didn’t say no, and so the little group headed down into his workshop. He paused on the staircase. “Ah, what the hell, you’re gonna see the suits later anyway. Come on down with us, Natasha.”</p><p>For her part, Nat looked shocked and enraged. It was a weird combination. Rhodey stopped to look at her and said Natasha was a pretty name.</p><p>“It’s Natalia,” she said, shoulders stiff. “And Stark? Do you really trust me going down to see your suits, since you seem convinced that I’m some sort of spy?”</p><p>Tony shrugged. “I mean, I had my godfather rip my heart right out of my chest. If you crush my head with your thighs like I’ve seen you do, at least Rhodey’s here to avenge me.” He grinned at the look on her face. “Ooh, the Avengers! You should tell Fury to call it that!”</p><p>“Tony, why don’t we just go downstairs and stop talking crazy, okay?” Pepper was looking at him like she always did when she was about to scold him.</p><hr/><p>Rhodey testing out the suit was wonderful. It went so much better than the first time when he had to steal it during his birthday party. His friend was a natural in the thing. “You know the government would give anything to get their hands on this thing, right?”</p><p>“Oh, I know,” Tony said, smiling. “They’ll thank me later that I didn’t let Stern and his other goons get anywhere near these babies.” He gave Natasha a pointed look and said, “Seriously. You’d all better be grateful that I don’t let Pierce touch my stuff.”</p><p>Pepper sighed in irritation as he dropped another name she had never heard before like it was important. He just smiled at her.</p><p>“Mister Stark, I expected some type of strange behavior from you when I applied for this job, but I have to say, you’ve really been surprising me.”</p><p>“Expected drunken parties, right?” He winked at her. “Expected me to fuck myself in the ass and get quarantined in my own home? Yeah, sounds like me…”</p><p>Jarvis suddenly spoke up, startling all of them. “<em>Sir, it appears Mister Justin Hammer has offered Mister Ivan Vanko a deal.</em>”</p><p>“Has he?” Tony rolled his eyes. “Who told us?”</p><p>“<em>Vanko, sir…</em>”</p><p>Tony smiled. “Told you the guy has pride. He can recognize garbage when he smells it.”</p><p>“<em>Sir, he is saying he wants more money from you or he’s taking Hammer’s offer.</em>”</p><p>“Sure, sure, double the money. It’s fine. As long as Vanko doesn’t start messing with the suits Hammer is trying, and failing, to make we’re okay. Cuz I am about 98 percent sure if anyone can get those piles of shit working, it’s Ivan.” Everyone was looking at him like he had grown three heads. “Oh, come on, Rhodey, you- you were at- you were at the hearing! You saw Hammer trying to make his own Iron Man suit.”</p><p>“Well, yeah, but there was only one in the video- and you said he was like twenty years away from making anything that worked!”</p><p>“Yeah, well if Hammer gets Ivan on his side, he has an entire fleet that works in less than a month.”</p><p>“You really think Ivan’s that good?”</p><p>“Oh, Agent, I <em>know</em> he’s that good. I saw what he was building when I visited him and made my offer. He’s the Russian Tony Stark and the fact that Fury never even approached him really blows my mind sometimes.” Tony was blathering on with his arms crossed in front of his chest. “The guy was making, basically, his own arc reactor in the cave just like I did. Except, you know, with a bird.”</p><p>Tony sighed at the looks on all their faces. “Look, if we piss Ivan off and don’t give him what he thinks he’s owed, then he and Hammer are our biggest problem for about a year and a half. After that, it’s space aliens and shit.”</p><p>“Tony, I think you need to go lie down…” He felt the gentle touch of Pepper’s hand against his back and exhaled loudly.</p><p>“Pep, I told you, I’m fine now. I <em>was</em> dying, yes, but I fixed it.”</p><p>“You were dying?” Ah, fuck, he hadn’t told Rhodey.</p><p>He decided, whatever, no consequences when he got back to his own time- why not just come clean? “Yeah,” he said, looking up at his friend. “I was.” He lifted up his T-shirt and showed the new reactor. “The old one of these? The one I made back in the cave? Was poisoning me… I made a new one, though, so I should be fine for a while.”</p><p>“Fuck, Tones, why didn’t you say anything?”</p><p>“How often have you ever heard me ask for help, Platypus? Honestly. In all the years you’ve known me, how many times?”</p><p>Rhodey sighed and stepped out of the suit. “You didn’t even ask for help after this shit went down.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the suits in their glass cases as he said it. Slowly, Rhodey rested his hands on Tony’s shoulders. “Tones, you gotta learn to ask for help. You can’t do everything yourself.”</p><p>“I know,” he breathed. “Believe me, I know…”</p><hr/><p>Tony tried to speak with Hank Pym again. This time he wouldn’t even open the door.</p><p>He tried sending Natasha to speak with Pym. She came back with a message from Pym. “Fuck you,” she said, smiling.</p><p>“Look,” Tony sighed, trying to call the man, “I’m gonna level with you here. In about a year, some fucking crazy space aliens are gonna come through a portal in the sky and I really need the Pym particles before that happens.” He had left about four voicemails. “I never met you, personally, and I’ve never gotten to thank you for inventing these particle things, but I’d really like to get back to where I was before and I can’t do that without them.” He could hack into Pym’s stuff, most likely, but it made him feel like shit to do that. “Please, just… think about it?”</p><p>He hung up and ran his hand over his face. Maybe he would have no choice but to hack into Pym’s shit…</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here is my essay on why Iron Man 2 is a good movie.</p><p>Because Don Cheadle made his debut in the film as Rhodey.</p><p>Sources- <br/>Don Cheadle.<br/>Iron Man 2.<br/>imdb.<br/>Don Cheadle's twitter account.</p><p>- Thank You.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Get Ready For Loki</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Tony deserves a soft birthday, damnit.<br/>The man deserves nice things in his life.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He felt like shit as he did, but Tony managed to hack into Hank Pym’s files halfway through his birthday breakfast. (Generously provided by Rhodey, mostly eaten by Pepper, and critiqued by Natasha.) He read up fast on the Pym particles- figured out how to make them himself, and tried to excuse himself from the meal. (Didn’t work.)</p><p>“Oh no, you sit your ass back down,” Rhodey ordered, pointing a spatula at him. “I found out you were dying like two days before your fucking birthday- you and I are spending it together.”</p><p>“But I wanna--.”</p><p>“No ‘but’,” Rhodey ordered. “Sit.” Tony did with a huff and then a groan as Rhodey slid another pancake onto his plate.</p><p>“They’re really good, Tony,” Pepper said between bites, “You should eat them before they get cold.”</p><p>“Maybe he thinks his pancakes are spying on him,” Nat said with a smirk and a sip of juice.</p><p>Tony, of course, smirked back. “I hate how much I missed this,” he muttered. Quick to cover his musings of the future, he asked. “Why do you guys have to remind me that I’m a people person, huh? Can’t you just leave me to my suits?”</p><p>“We could, but then you’d be calling us at three in the morning because you’re lonely.” Tony grinned as Rhodey teased him. Yep, this birthday was absolutely leagues better than the first time. Nobody was shooting him with his own suits. Nobody was dying. It was nice. He wished it had gone like this the first time around.</p><p>“Whatever it is you want to work on can wait,” Pepper said. “Right now it’s pancakes and then later we’re going to have a s<em>mall</em> party with Happy.”</p><p>Tony grinned at her. Normally he would have loved to joke about inviting a bunch of random strangers, but he’d already done that. And he shot a watermelon when he did that. Instead, he said, “You know… That sounds nice.”</p><hr/><p>The little party was nicer than a lot of his birthdays had ever been in the past. Or future. Whatever. Point is, the party was nice. They all joked, they ate crap junk food, and had a few drinks. Happy had given him a present that he said he made himself- Tony laughed when he opened it up and found a framed picture of Happy inside, flipping up both of his middle fingers.</p><p>“I’ll put it right on my shelf in the lab,” he said, smiling.</p><p>Pepper and Rhodey had both gone together and bought him cheesy Iron Man merch. A mug made in China by a company not affiliated with him, a pen that was already broken, a shirt, and a fake Iron Man mask.</p><p>“These will be perfect to wear to the Expo,” he said, holding up the mask and shirt. “People will love it. The press, especially.” He laughed. “I can see the headlines now ‘Tony Stark so conceited, he wears his own merchandise to his father’s convention.’”</p><p>“I’d frame that if it came with a photograph,” Natasha said, sipping a vodka martini. “You should wear booty shorts, too. Really complete the look.”</p><p>Tony just grinned at her. “Did you <em>get</em> me some booty shorts, Agent? Please say yes.” Instead, she handed him a watch. He pouted. “This is <em>my own watch</em>.”</p><p>“Yes, and you dropped it down the sink the other day,” Nat said. “It took a couple hours, but I got it back for you. And see? Not a scratch on it. Happy birthday.”</p><p>“Well, you’re fired,” Tony huffed. The others all laughed and he took a small sip of his scotch. He had really cut back on his drinking in the future. It was nice to have a sip or two, but he really didn’t want to go crazy anymore. He’d had enough close calls, and his liver really thanked him as he got older.</p><hr/><p>Re-creating the Pym particles was a tiny bit harder than he had thought it would be. He didn’t quite have measurements right, or didn’t have the steps right, or Pym didn’t update his notes digitally or something. It took him an entire day before he finally made particles that looked like the stuff he had used in the future. He even put a button on the top.</p><p>Taking a moment, he took a good look around at a life that could have been and smiled sadly. Still, it was nice while it lasted.</p><p>He saluted and pressed his thumb down on the button.</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>And when he opened his eyes. Nothing changed.</p><p>He was still in the lab.</p><p>The particles were sitting in his hand, glowing faintly from the friction caused by his button device, but other than that, nothing had changed.</p><p>He was still here.</p><p>Oh, fuck, he was still here!</p><p>Fuck, no. No, no, no, no, no!</p><p>No, he had to go home!</p><p>He had- Morgan! He had to get home to Morgan! Oh, fuck, no, no, no!</p><p>Tony wasn’t even aware he was screaming until there were hands trying to cover his mouth to make him stop.</p><p>“Tony!” Rhodey. That was Rhodey’s voice.</p><p>“Tony, it’s okay! You’re safe! You’re home! You’re not in the cave!”</p><p>No, no, no! He didn’t want to be here! The cave, the cave- fuck the cave!</p><p>He needed to get home!</p><p>His daughter!</p><p>“Tony, look at me!” That was Pepper shouting at him.</p><p>And he tried. He really tried to look at her. But as soon as his eyes started to lift from where they had gone out of focus on the floor, they rolled back into his head and he blacked out.</p><hr/><p>It ended up taking him two weeks to come to a sort of acceptance.</p><p>He was stuck here.</p><p>He had to go through and relive it all.</p><p>Unless he was able to re-build everything from the future that he had only taken a quick glance at, he was stuck here.</p><p>It hurt.</p><p>The first week, Tony was angry. Angry at Steve for dragging him into this. Angry at himself for going along with him. Angry at the universe for giving him such a wonderful gift and taking it all away from him.</p><p>The eighth day, he felt broken. He was so sad and upset, he hardly talked to anybody. Pepper had tried cheering him up, but looking at her and knowing this wasn’t the Pepper that had married him yet made him even sadder. He knew they probably could get back to where they were- but that meant living through twelve years of hell with her again. Putting her through all the shit that happened to him again.</p><p>He loved her. The thought of having to make her love him again made him consider drinking to death.</p><p>After fourteen days, though, he had accepted his fate.</p><p>He’d have to do it all over again.</p><p>Well… It could be worse. At least this time he could be better prepared. He knew what was going to happen, after all. Maybe he could prevent a few things.</p><p>Or fuck it up worse. Who knew.</p><p>Vanko ended up attacking him anyway. He used the money Tony gave him to build his own suits- better than the ones he took from Hammer the first time- and attacked.</p><p>It took Tony and Rhodey fighting together to win, again. And this time they had the Black Widow working right by their side.</p><p>When she came out, guns blazing, Tony had grinned at her. She had simply rolled her eyes and told him, “Shut up and start shooting.”</p><p>When the battle was finally over and the damages were accounted for, Rhodey commented, “She really was a fucking spy, holy shit.”</p><p>“Told you.”</p><p>“I said shut up,” Natasha huffed. “I don’t know how you knew, Stark, but you can stop acting so smug about it.”</p><p>They weren’t able to save Vanko’s life, again, but this time he at least didn’t have to worry about Justin Hammer trying to take over the fucking world. Without Vanko, he didn’t know what Hammer would get arrested for, but it would only be a matter of time before it happened. The guy was a walking disaster.</p><p>Of course the media and the government got all over his ass when the news got out. People continued trying to get him to hand over his suits. He still refused.</p><p>“Tony, wouldn’t it help if the army could make their own?” Rhodey had asked him after his third interview about them.</p><p>Tony shook his head. “Only people I’m letting have a suit are you, Pep, and Petie.”</p><p>“Petie? Who the hell…?”</p><p>Oh, right. He was probably still like eight years old right now. He shook his head. “Never mind. Maybe Happy can get a suit if he stays on my good side.”</p><p>“Don’t you want to protect people, though? Isn’t that what the point of the suits is?” Natasha had stuck around this time. Fury still had jobs for her, but she had decided she liked him this time and she kept popping by for visits.</p><p>Tony sighed. “Yes. The suits are for protection, but you just- you don’t understand. You guys don’t even know about Hydra yet and if they get anywhere near my stuff we’re basically fuc—oh shit, Hydra.” Tony sat up. Steve’s old pal. The guy who killed his parents. Hyrda still had him!</p><p>“Tony, Hydra’s been dismantled for decades,” Nat said, looking at him curiously. “You knew Peggy Carter- she made sure to stomp them out.”</p><p>He shook his head. “No, no, they- they’re not gone. It’s just new members. Hydra’s still there. They’re inside Shield. Right now.”</p><p>Rhodey looked confused, but Natasha had narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “How do you know?”</p><p>“I fucking fought- I… Fuck.” He ran his hand over his eyes. “You know Bucky Barnes?”</p><p>Nat raised a brow at him. “Steve Rogers’ old military buddy? Yeah, Peggy talked about him a lot to Fury. Said he died. Fell off a train.”</p><p>Tony shook his head. “Nope. Not dead.” He grimaced a little. “Neither is dear old Cap, by the way. I’m pretty sure in about a month or two you guys find him half frozen in a block of ice.”</p><p>“How the fuck do you know that?” Rhodey was looking at him like he was insane. “Tony, how the fuck?”</p><p>Nat was staring at him in shock as well. Tony sighed. “I tried telling Pepper about all this, but she didn’t believe me. I doubt you guys will either, but well… May as well give it a shot.” He took a deep breath before saying, “I’m from the future. Or at least, I was. We were trying to get time travel to work so we could go back and get something we lost. I was the first one to test the machine and it didn’t work.” He wasn’t looking at them yet. “I hit the button and the next thing I knew, I was waking up in my bed in Malibu with the old fucking reactor poisoning my bloodstream.”</p><p>When he opened his eyes, both of them were staring at him still. Neither of them had moved.</p><p>“You want proof?” He hoped they didn’t think he was crazy. “Go ahead, ask me something that happens in the future. Though, something that happens soon. It’ll take too long if it’s something four years from now.”</p><p>“That’s how you knew about me?” Natasha breathed, eyes going wide. “You knew who I was because you’d actually met me before?”</p><p>Tony nodded. “I know a whole lot about you. Probably too much.” He looked at her as he kept talking. “I know Fury’s making the giant helicarrier right now. I know that something <em>big</em> is going to happen in New Mexico in less than a year. And I know that a year from now I’ll be living in a tower in New York when an alien invasion happens. The helicarrier almost gets shot down, by the by.”</p><p>“Jesus, Tones.”</p><p>“Things happen to you too, Platypus,” Tony says, smiling bitterly. “But, maybe this time, they won’t happen. Not if I can help it.”</p><p>Rhodey looked worried for a brief moment before sighing and giving up. He let his shoulders slump. “What happens with you and Pep? Why didn’t she believe you?”</p><p>“She,” Tony faltered, suddenly feeling nervous and embarrassed about it all. “She and I had a kid.”</p><p>“Jesus.”</p><p>“A daughter,” Tony said, smiling. “Her name was Morgan. She loved you, Rhodey. Called you Uncle Ro.” Rhodey’s look of shock eventually faded into a soft smile. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to that point, though,” he said. “Pep really was bothered by it when I tried to tell her.”</p><p>Reaching out, Rhodey squeezed Tony’s shoulder. “Hey, you’ve got time.”</p><hr/><p>It felt weird going and reliving his life, but Tony was slowly acclimating. He had finally gotten used to hearing Jarvis’ voice again and he was re-learning that he couldn’t take breaths as deep as he had grown used to without the reactor. Maybe he could get it removed again. He’d have to wait for the really good doctor again, though. The guy he’d hired had the steadiest hands Tony had seen since Yinsen.</p><p>He had really started getting used to his new life. Right up until Jarvis woke him up saying there was an urgent call from Agent Coulson. From New Mexico.</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” Tony groaned. “Thor. Right. Fuck.”</p><p>He answered Coulson’s call with a huff. “What’s up, Agent?”</p><p>“Stark, have you made any new suits? There’s this big metal guy in New Mexico- Romanoff told me you said some shit was going to go down here- is this yours?”</p><p>Tony didn’t remember a big metal guy the first time. But, then again, he wasn’t there the first time either. “No, it’s not me,” he said, frowning. “Do you need me down there? I can fly there in an hour or two if you need me.”</p><p>He heard a loud explosion in the background and then Coulson said, “Okay, yeah, we might need you here soon.”</p><p>And off he flew.</p><hr/><p>But he was too late. By the time Tony got there, the town was already flattened. “Fuck,” he swore when he got there. Faceplate retracting, he stormed up to Coulson. “Where’s Thor? Where’s Loki? What happened?”</p><p>“Thor’s gone,” Coulson said, breathing heavily. “He went back. And who’s Loki? Is that the name of the big metal guy?”</p><p>Loki hadn’t shown up? No, that couldn’t be right. Thor had said he had been fighting Loki during this. He was sure of it.</p><p>“He’s back on Asgard?” Tony looked around. “God damnit, I should have gotten here faster.”</p><p>“You know about Asgard?” A woman was hurrying over to his side. He recognized her as Jane Foster and offered her a bitter smile. She took a moment before reaching out to shake his hand. “Jane Foster.”</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>“You’re Tony Stark, I know,” Jane said, sounding breathless, “But you said Asgard. You know about that?”</p><p>He nodded. “I do, yeah. And I’ll definitely talk to you about it, but there’s no way we can get up there to stop him, can we?” He was pointing up at the sky. “Can we call his Heimdall buddy? I’d really like it if we can stop whatever happens with Loki right now.”</p><p>“You know about Heimdall?” Jane looked even more startled. “Thor’s only told me about him twice. How do you know about that?”</p><p>Tony saw the locals all starting to come out of their ruined buildings and gather around them. He sighed, but knew what he had to do. Turning to look at them all, he used his suit to magnify his voice. “Hello everyone! My name is Tony Stark! I’m here to announce that Stark Industries will be covering any expenses needed to repair your town and rebuild your lives! Please see Agent Coulson with a list of everything that needs to be done or needs to be replaced and I will have my people on it by the end of the week!”</p><p>“It’s Saturday.”</p><p>“By Wednesday next week, then!” Tony smiled at Jane.</p><p>The girl by Jane’s side spoke. “I lost my ipod- you owe me twelve new ones.”</p><p>Tony laughed. “All right,” he said.</p><p>“And I want a pool.”</p><p>“Do you even live here?” Tony asked, smirking at the girl.</p><p>An older man approached him and it took Tony a second before he recognized him. “Erik Selvig,” he said, beaming. “Good to see you.”</p><p>“Ah, you as well, Mister Stark.” Selvig shook his metal hand. “I’m surprised you remember me. You were just a boy back then.”</p><p>“I take pride in keeping up on all the research being done around the world,” Tony lied. “For instance, did you know there’s a Doctor Banner who researches gamma radiation? Brilliant stuff.”</p><p>“Look, not that this isn’t all <em>fascinating</em>,” Jane said, “But shouldn’t we be trying to reach Thor?” Just as she said it, the storm in the sky began to dissipate. Her face dropped instantly. “No,” she whispered. “No, no, he- he said he’d be back! He said- no, he wasn’t supposed to just leave!”</p><p>“Fuck.” Tony swore. Thor being gone meant only one thing.</p><p>It was time to get ready for Loki.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>the title was misleading, was it not?</p><p>:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. What Does He Do?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tony hated it, but he had to talk to Fury. He set up a meeting time with him and as soon as he walked into the room, he said, “I’m gonna talk for a while and you need to listen, so please don’t argue with me.”</p><p>Fury didn’t react much beyond a couple of blinks. After a second of silence, he nodded and motioned his hand toward the open chair in front of him.</p><p>Tony sat and sighed. “All right.” He took out a Stark Pad. “I know about your Avenger initiative. I know you guys have found Captain America and are working on thawing him out right now. I know you’ve been following Bruce Banner since the Hulk incident, and I know you don’t want me on the Avengers, but you need me.” He pulled up a few pictures on the pad. “I’ve bought this building in New York. It’s going to eventually become the Avengers’ tower. There’s going to be some serious shit happening pretty soon with the Tesseract. Nothing you guys do will be able to stop it- it’s gonna happen because I was too late to fix things.” He had gotten Jarvis to recreate a rough image of Loki and they had tweaked it together until it looked like him.</p><p>Pointing at the picture, he said, “This guy is Loki. He’s going to be coming <em>through</em> the Tesseract and he’s gonna steal it. No, I don’t think you can stop him from doing that either. He’s like Thor. I’m sure Coulson already told you about him.”</p><p>“He did.”</p><p>“Good. Well, Loki’s his brother. He’s stronger and faster than all of us and he’s as smart as me, maybe smarter on a good day.” Tony smiled at the look Fury gave him when he said that. “I know, hard to hear me admitting someone’s smarter than I am, but it happens. Anyway.” He flicked through a few more pictures. “Loki’s coming and we have to be ready. He’s going to use the Tesseract to set up an army of aliens unless we can stop him beforehand.”</p><p>“You mean we kill him,” Fury suggested, looking serious and bored all at once.</p><p>Tony shook his head. “No, no, we <em>need</em> him.” He sighed. “It’s hard to explain, but Loki isn’t the worst we’re going to be dealing with. There’s this big guy- Thanos. He’s the one who sends Loki here. Wants him to take over the world.”</p><p>“So we have to stop him from succeeding?”</p><p>“No, we have to help Loki stop Loki from succeeding.”</p><p>“You’ve lost me.” Fury said. “What do you mean help Loki stop Loki?”</p><p>“He doesn’t want to do it,” Tony said, smiling bitterly. “The first time this happened, we were all convinced by his act, but that’s just what it is- <em>an act</em>. Loki does his damndest to make us think this is actually what he wants, but he makes sure to take every step he can to ensure he fails.” He brought back up the picture of his tower. “Example- he opens up the portal for his army on top of <em>my tower</em>. Super easy to get to- super easy to spot. Why? Because he wanted it to be easy for us to stop him.”</p><p>“If he’s been sent here to take over the world and he doesn’t actually want to, why do any of it in the first place?”</p><p>“See, that’s the right question to ask,” Tony said, “And I have an answer. <em>Mind control</em>. Or, well, mind <em>influencing</em>.”</p><p>“Loki didn’t have a choice in the beginning,” Tony said. “Thanos makes him come here and uses this crazy scepter thing to make him into a puppet. Except it’s not a hundred percent. Loki still has some free will and he still has his brain. And he uses it.”</p><p>Tony shows him a map of the United States then. He waves his hand over it. “Loki could have chosen anywhere in America. Anywhere in the world. But he chose my tower. He couldn’t make it <em>look</em> like he was trying to fail, but he was. Anyone as smart as him would have set up his army as far away as possible to give them time to completely overwhelm us.”</p><p>Fury sighed and held up a hand. “Hold on. I need a minute.” Tony went quiet while Fury rubbed his head. “So this… <em>Loki guy</em>… He’s the bad guy. But he’s not <em>really</em> the bad guy?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“So when do we fight this <em>Thanos</em> dude?” Fury looked up at him.</p><p>“Well, the first time, he doesn’t show up until 2018, but if we can get Loki on our side, we may never have to fight him. Or it would at least delay it by five or ten years. It would give us even more time to prepare for him.”</p><p>Fury seemed to notice something in the way he said that. He sat up straighter in his chair.</p><p>His voice was quiet and deadly serious when he next spoke. “What does he do?”</p><p>.</p><p>.</p><p>“He wipes out half of all life on Earth.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:)</p><p>this is my only day off this whole week.</p><p>:)))))))))</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Life Goes On</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Life went on. Tony lived through the same events he had a decade before over again. He occasionally had existential crises about it. But he moved on. He lived.</p><p>Building/modifying the tower to his liking was easy enough. It didn’t matter how many times he lived it, Tony could still hire as many people as he wanted to work on it and finish it faster than anybody reasonably should.</p><p>He was slowly beginning to accept that he and Pepper were never going to be back where they were before. He had messed things up by telling her about their daughter. It was like walking on eggshells any time they got intimate. He shouldn’t have acted the way he did- like nothing had any consequence. Because now any time he and Pepper did more than kiss, she was nervous and insistent on doubling the protection.</p><p>They were sitting together one night and things hadn’t moved past a few kisses while cuddling on the bed.</p><p>“I really fucked this up, didn’t I?”</p><p>His question startled Pepper. She sat up and looked at him. Seeing the way he looked at her, she sighed. “I’m sorry, Tony, I just… You <em>just</em> made me CEO, you know? I’m not ready to have any babies. I finally have a career that’s important and I’m working and busy and people need me.”</p><p>“I get that,” he said. “We don’t have to be ‘babies ever after’ if you don’t want, I just… It was nice, you know? I was finally able to prove to myself that I could be a <em>good father</em>, you know? After my old man, I was… I thought no matter what I did, I’d fuck my kid up just as bad as he fucked <em>me</em> up.”</p><p>“And maybe someday you will again,” Pepper said, rubbing her hand against his arm. “But right now? I don’t wanna have to worry about getting pregnant. I’m a boss now. I can’t take a break from that.”</p><p>Tony smiled at her. “And I don’t wanna ask you to. You’ve earned this job. You’ve worked hard. You’ve put up with me.” He sighed. “I don’t think things are gonna work for us, though. Not when you’re afraid every time we have sex that I have babies on the brain.”</p><p>She grimaced a little bit when he said that. “Are we breaking up right now?”</p><p>.</p><p>“I think we are…” Tony gave her hand a little squeeze.</p><p>“I still love you, Tony,” she said, “I just think we need a break.”</p><p>“I know… Me too.”</p><p>She kissed his cheek and turned over in bed. “Good night, Tony. We’ll talk in the morning.”</p><hr/><p>Tony hadn’t wanted to keep the Tesseract in the original place Loki stole it from, but he remembered what happened that first time and knew a big empty place in the middle of nowhere was safest when it eventually collapsed on itself. He warned Fury of what would happen and told him the <em>second</em> the Tesseract started acting funny that he needed to get everyone out. He told him Loki would use the scepter to control people if he wasn’t careful and he would lose Barton if he gave him the chance.</p><p>“Loki uses Barton to get some German scientist’s eyeball.”</p><p>Fury had looked confused. “So, do we stop him?”</p><p>“No,” Tony said after a while. “I think the best thing to do is give Loki as much help as possible. He wants us to wipe out as much of Thanos’ army as we can. We just gotta help it along.”</p><p>“So that means?”</p><p>“Well, last time the Shield council sent a nuke toward New York City and I flew it through the portal, blowing up a pretty big portion of his army… Maybe this time they need to send two.”</p><p>“Stark.”</p><p>“I’m serious, Fury,” he said. “We need Loki to reach the point where he opens up a portal. Maybe we can get him to help us with that. Maybe I can pretend to be one of his puppets and then when the council sends the nukes I can run them both up into the hole.”</p><p>Fury was scowling at him. “And how many casualties will we have if we follow that plan, Stark? How many innocent civilians are going to die?”</p><p>He flinched a little. Good point. Fury was right.</p><p>They needed another solution.</p><p>It took him a minute.</p><p>“Banner.”</p><p>“Pardon?”</p><p>He spun and looked at Fury, eyes glinting. “Banner! The only thing that had stopped Loki the last time was getting whacked around by the Hulk!” He smacked his fist into his other hand, excited. “If we can get Banner here, we can stop him before he even starts! We can still build the portal and send shit through, but this way we don’t have to worry about him killing people in New York or Germany!”</p><p>Fury rubbed his chin as he thought it over.</p><p>“I <em>know</em> you know where Banner is,” Tony said. “If we can get Hulk on his ass, then we can get our Loki problem under control.”</p><p>“And Hulk was the <em>only</em> thing that stopped him last time?”</p><p>Tony scoffed. “I blasted him with my suit from like, two feet away and he got back up like it was a little baby push. He and Thor even fought at one point and he barely acted like anything happened. Hulk’s our only option.”</p><p>“Banner isn’t gonna like it.”</p><p>“He didn’t like it the first time either.”</p><hr/><p>Tony had been introduced to Captain America in a bit more of an amicable way this time around. They were introduced as they were brought in to the campus holding the Tesseract. Tony had already hacked into Shield ages ago and had been discreetly deleting and destroying their plans for weapons built using the Tesseract’s power. This time he was able to do it quietly. (He was also leaving not so discreet incriminating files on the people who were involved with Hydra.)</p><p>Tony had been excited to say hello to Bruce again. He stuck with his tried and true method of nerding out over science with him. The man was startled and confused, but seemed happy to have another scientist to talk with.</p><p>Barton was here as well and so was Natasha. Tony just wondered if and when Thor would show up. He must have been able to see or sense Loki being here the last time. So they just had to hope Loki coming back would trigger him as well. They really could use his lightning.</p><p>“I know you don’t wanna hear it,” Tony said to Bruce, “But when Loki gets here, we <em>are</em> going to need the Hulk.”</p><p>Bruce made an unhappy face. “I know. Fury and Natasha were already telling me.” He looked at Tony then. “They were saying you’ve seen the future.”</p><p>“A version of it,” Tony said, smiling a little. “None of this,” he waved his finger around in a circle, “happened the first time. None of us were working together. We were a mess of a team back then.”</p><p>Bruce nodded and watched everyone walking around. It was nice seeing him like this. Not as a weird half and half mix between him and the Hulk. They were two different people, really. They just shared a body. “What happens to me?” He finally asks.</p><p>Tony has to think about it for a minute. “You and Hulk help us. A lot. You help with Avengers things. And then for a few years, you disappear… I don’t see you for a long time.” Bruce looked unhappy to hear that. “The next time I see you is during the whole battle thing. And you say you had been working with Loki and with Thor. You seemed like you all became friends.”</p><p>“I become <em>friends</em> with the guy who tries to take over our planet?”</p><p>Laughing, Tony said, “Yeah. You actually kinda stuck up for him. But, like I said, I don’t know what happened. You just kind of showed up.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Today was also supposed to be my day off, but they need me to come in.  Which sucks, honestly.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Loki Happened</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Loki arrived, they were as prepared as they were going to be, and somehow he <em>still</em> managed to maim seven of Fury’s operatives and kill three of them before Hulk even touched the guy. Fucker was <strong>fast</strong>!</p><p>Hulk had thrown him into a wall and that sent the scepter flying out of his hands. Of course Barton and Romanoff rushed to grab it and keep it away from the demigod, but Tony and Cap were both hurrying forward to try and get Hulk to relax.</p><p>“Okay, okay! Big guy!” Tony was shouting. “Hulk, you did good!” Hulk was shouting still and getting ready to hit Loki again. “No, no, Big guy! We need him! He’s gonna help us!”</p><p>Hulk paused and frowned at Tony in clear confusion. “Bad guy!” He shouted, looking back at Loki.</p><p>Tony let his suit release him as he rushed over to Hulk’s side. “Yes, yes, he is a bad guy,” he said, “But we need him to tell us where the <em>other</em> bad guy is. Okay?” Hulk looked mad. Glancing up at the ceiling and seeing the way it was beginning to crumble. “Tell you what- the building is getting ready to fall apart on us. As soon as everybody’s outside, you can go through and smash anything else that didn’t fall down. Sound good?” Hulk grinned at that. “Good.”</p><p>He got into his suit again and moved to Loki. The god was, surprisingly, not unconscious. “Jesus, what are you <em>made</em> of? You just took a Hulk beating and you’re still <em>awake</em>??” He used his suit to help lift Loki up off the ground. Judging by the way Loki immediately tried to throw him off, his injuries weren’t completely life threatening. “Sto-st-s- stop it! I’m trying to help you, stop trying to rip my face off!”</p><p>“I don’t need your help!” The god snarled at him, finally managing to tear the face plate off and throwing it somewhere off to their left. “Release me!”</p><p>“And let you get crushed by this fucking building? Do I <em>look</em> like a heartless bastard to you?” Tony started up the thrusters and winced a little as the suit struggled with Loki’s weight. Damn guy was <em>heavy</em>. Eventually he blasted past Cap and the others with the god and only glanced back a few times to make sure they were coming with everyone they could possibly save.</p><p>Loki was still trying to get away from him. He was ripping pieces off like his suit was made of play-doh as they flew. “Fuck, will you <strong>stop</strong>!? You can have the Tesseract back after this, okay?”</p><p>“Let go of me!” Loki was trying to fight with him, but after twisting himself just so- Tony heard a very distinct intake of breath that he knew translated to ‘ow.’ He glanced down to look at his face and could see Loki’s eyes were screwed shut and his teeth were gritted together. Thankfully, the pain meant that he had stopped fighting to get away from him. Looked like it hurt like hell, though.</p><p>It took a few minutes for them to fly out of the base, but once they were out, Tony carefully set Loki down on the grass. “Look,” he said. “I know you could just teleport out of here, but please don’t.” Loki was blinking up at him, clearly confused. “Just trust me, okay? I gotta go back and make sure everyone gets out all right.” He gets ready to fly back in, but then pauses, deciding to show his hand. He looks down at Loki again and says, “We’re gonna fuck Thanos in the ass.”</p><p>He didn’t take the time to watch Loki’s reaction. He already knew that would be enough. He flew back into the building and began pulling people out. “Stark, what happened to Loki!?” He heard Cap shout at him at one point.</p><p>“He’s taking a nap in the yard!”</p><p>He and Hulk were the fastest of the bunch, and it ended up being the two of them running back and forth, grabbing people and tossing them out of the building. Halfway through his last trip, the person in Tony’s arms disappeared in a blip of green. Everyone disappeared in a blip of green, actually. Looking around, everybody was suddenly sitting in the middle of the grass outside of the still-crumbling fortress.</p><p>Everyone was looking around in shock. “What the fuck just happened?” Barton asked, well, more like screamed.</p><p>Tony, of course, was already pushing himself to his feet with a smile.</p><p>“Loki happened.”</p>
<hr/><p>Loki had collapsed back onto the grass after his little magic teleportation trick. Tony would bet money that Hulk had broken part of his spine. But even with an injury like that he had still managed to move everyone still stuck in the building out to safety. Just how powerful <em>was</em> this guy? How had they fallen for him the first time around? How could they have really believed he would be captured as easily as he was? Fuck, they were all so stupid. Why didn't Thor tell them that Loki was that strong?</p><p>Tony approached the god slowly, before dropping onto his butt beside him. Loki had his eyes closed, but opened one at the sound. He groaned.</p><p>“How do you know of Thanos?” Was, naturally, the first thing out of his mouth. (Throat sounded like he had gargled glass, though. Ouch.)</p><p>Grinning, Tony said, “Long story. But for now, how would you like to open a portal to his army and send a couple bombs through?”</p><p>Loki hummed a little, closing his eyes again with a bit of a smile. “I’d like to hear that story first.”</p><p>“Aw, don’t you trust me?” Tony asked, batting his eyelashes. “Do I not look like the most trustworthy guy you’ve ever seen?”</p><p>“I don't know you and you had a giant green beast attack me.”</p><p>“Well, how else were we supposed to get Thanos out of your head? None of us can hit <em>that hard</em>.”</p><p>Now Loki opened both of his eyes. “You…?” He stopped himself, eyes searching Tony’s face. Probably wondering how the hell he knew that and checking to see if he was lying. Tony just offered him a sad smile and eventually those harsh green eyes softened. “How did you know? I had hardly been here more than a minute.”</p><p>“Do people often see the future in Asgard?” Tony asked, looking up as Fury and the others began approaching the two of them. He could see Fury holding the briefcase with the Tesseract in it.</p><p>Loki seemed surprised. “You are a sorcerer?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“Then how can you claim to have seen the future?”</p><p>Tony shrugged. “Got fucked over by people trying to travel through time. Got stuck in the past. Now I have no choice but to live through it all over again.” He looked down at Loki and winked. “Your horny helmet’s hot, by the way.” He felt very proud when that actually made Loki chuckle. His pride faded when the laughter turned into Loki groaning in pain and falling back against the grass. “Sorry. Hulk hits hard.”</p><p>“I’ve had worse.”</p><p>When Fury reached them, he sighed and handed the briefcase over to Tony. “I hope you’re right about this, Stark.”</p><p>“I’m always right about everything. Just ask Rhodey.”</p><p>“He specifically asked <em>not</em> to be involved with this, actually,” Fury said, smirking. “Said something about how he’d rather deal with the president’s bullshit than you and aliens.”</p><p>Tony sighed dreamily. “I love my Rhodeybear.”</p><p>“So when does the brother get here?” Fury asked, motioning at Loki. Tony noticed the way Loki immediately tensed up.</p><p>Shrugging, Tony said, “Couple days? Last time it took him about two and a half nights to get to Earth. That should give us plenty of time to work with Loki on our portal.”</p><p>“Wait, we’re still building that?” Steve asked, looking confusedly back and forth between Tony and Fury. “I thought the point of this was stopping Loki from building it.”</p><p>“No, the point was to stop him from building it in New York where lots of people get killed. Haven’t you been paying attention?” Tony frowned at Fury. “Did nobody debrief this man?”</p><p>Steve exhaled loudly. “All right- if we’re still building it, can you at least tell me <em>why</em>?”</p><p>“Because there is an army on the other side,” Loki answered from where he was still lying on the ground. “And your ‘Stark’ wants to destroy it.”</p><p>Tony grinned and waved one hand toward the god. “See? At least somebody’s been paying attention!”</p><p>It took about ten minutes before Loki was able to sit up. It took twelve before Hulk was gone and Bruce was back. When he walked over and saw Loki getting to his feet, he looked at Tony and said, “Now I see why you said we’d need Hulk.” Tony barked out a laugh and gave Bruce a pat on the back.</p><p>“It’s weird, right?” Tony glanced up at Loki. “Normally when Hulk hits something- it stays down.”</p><p>“Normally when Hulk hits something- it’s <em>dead</em>,” Bruce said.</p><p>Nodding, Tony turned his attention back to the group. “All right. I say we get everyone to base camp so we can get to work on this portal!” He turned to Fury, and Loki, because Fury was making sure to stay close to the god, and said, “From what I remember last time, we needed metal from a meteorite that makes anti-protons or something like that. We can ask Selvig when we get there, but he’s gonna help us make this thing.” He could see the nervous shift of Fury’s eyes and sighed. “Cap and I can stay with Loki while we travel.”</p><p>“I don’t need you watching me,” Loki hissed at him, clearly angry.</p><p>“You came to our world so you could take over and rule- forgive us for being a little bit touchy.”</p><p>Tony rolled his eyes at Steve. “No, Steve, come on, I already told you- he came here because he was hoping we would take out the army. He came here <em>to lose</em>. I <strong><em>know</em></strong> I told you that one.” Loki was looking at him with wide, suspicious eyes. Tony knew that look- Natasha looked at him like that the first time he called her by her real name. Confused that someone had found them out before they even got a chance to trick them. It was probably disconcerting.</p>
<hr/><p>The trip to get to the base camp was uncomfortable and awkward, but Tony was so happy it was all going so well, that he didn’t really care. Loki <em>had</em> killed a few people, that was true, but it was nothing compared to how bad it was the first time around. Sitting next to him in one of Shield’s Jeeps was weird, but hey, Tony had already been stabbed in the back by one other person in this Jeep, so who cares anymore right? His life was a fucking soap opera from hell anyway.</p><p>“How do you know of Thanos?” Loki asked him again from his right side.</p><p>Tony grimaced a little. “Fought him,” he said. “Lost bad.” He looked at Loki and winced at how harshly he was staring at him. “He came to Earth. Well, sent his goons to Earth first. Took a stone in a necklace from a wizard and tortured him until he got it. Maw was his name, I think.” He saw the venom in Loki’s eyes when he said that name. Clearly there was some bad blood there. “We fought the giant purple grape and lost big time. After that, he came to Earth and wiped out half of all life in the universe.”</p><p>“Half of all life?” That was Steve. He looked horrified. “What even- I mean, I just… <em>why</em>? What is the point of that?”</p><p>Sighing, Tony said, “Something about how humans and human-like lifeforms are greedy and we all wipe ourselves out eventually. I don’t know. Some freshman year philosophy bullshit.” He leaned toward Loki and muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear him. “Not a very good reason to wanna wipe out half of all life, if you ask me.”</p><p>“He is called the ‘Mad Titan’ for a reason,” Loki said, looking out at the scenery as they passed.</p><p>“Oh yeah, I forgot. Thor called him that during our meeting…” Tony shrugged. “I dunno. Whatever you wanna call yourself, I guess. Not very cool sounding, but whatever.”</p><p>“Your file said you used to be called the ‘Merchant of Death,’” Steve commented from where he was sitting. Loki raised a brow at him, but didn’t say anything.</p><p>“I sold weapons,” Tony clarified to the god before rounding back on Steve. “And I stopped doing that like, twelve years ago, so you can get off my ass.”</p><p>“Uh, it was only three years ago, Mister Stark.” The driver of the Jeep said that.</p><p>Tony rubbed his palms into his eyes. “Ugh, fuck, whatever. I can’t remember anymore, okay? Point is, I don’t fucking make weapons anymore!”</p><p>“Now you’re calling yourself ‘Iron Man,’” Steve said, seeming to ignore his complaining. “I don’t think you should be critiquing anyone’s fancy titles.”</p><p>Tony huffed. “Oh, okay <em>Captain America</em>,” he snipped. “You’re not even a real captain, where do you get off?” He could see Loki rubbing his forehead beside him and felt a tiny bit bad about that. He hoped the guy wouldn’t just leave because of all their arguing… To be fair, though, he and Steve had always had the hardest time agreeing on anything.</p><p>He probably should tell Steve about Bucky eventually.</p><p>Now probably wasn’t the best time, but the guy was practically in love with him. He needed to know.</p><p>Pausing for a minute, Tony looked at Loki. “You’re like a thousand years old right?”</p><p>Loki exhaled loudly. “<em>Why</em>?” Was all he said.</p><p>He shrugged. “Just wondered. You don’t look a day over thirty, honestly.”</p><p>“This is what you do, isn’t it?” Steve again. “You make jokes all the time because you can’t take anything seriously.”</p><p>“Oh, bite me, Rogers,” Tony snapped. “You keep this shit up and I’m not telling you any of my future secrets about you.”</p><p>Steve rolled his eyes. “Fury told me about that. I really don’t believe you’re from the future.”</p><p>“Body’s not,” Tony said, “Mind is.”</p><p>“It’s crap. It’s not true. None of it is.”</p><p>Tony clenched and unclenched a fist on his thigh a few times. Oohhh, he was <em>so tempted</em> to tell him about Bucky. Steve was getting on his <em>last nerve</em>.</p><p>Instead, he just took a deep breath and tried to remember the calming exercises Bruce taught him. Or would have taught him. Had have taught him in the future... past? Ah, fuck it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Loki and Tony banter is my favorite thing</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Sour Gummy Worms</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I honestly have no idea how many chapters this thing will have.  I'm not planning on it being that long. I just got hit with the inspiration to write this the other day, so I'm getting it out.</p><p>It's fun, though!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they finally arrived, Tony hopped out of the car and very nearly turned around to help the others out after him. He caught himself at the last minute, though. Neither Steve, nor Loki would have appreciated his show of chivalry. Probably would have ended up with him losing some teeth.</p><p>As they walked, though, Tony pulled out a little bag from his pocket. Fury and his men were leading them inside. He opened the bag and held it toward Loki. “Peanut?”</p><p>“What?” Loki looked completely lost and completely fed up with him. Tony shook the bag a little bit and Loki carefully took one out of the little pouch. After he had eaten it, Tony smiled a little when the god ended up taking the whole bag from him.</p><p>Steve was making a face at him, and the face only got worse when Tony pulled out… Another bag!</p><p>“I brought snacks!” He said, shaking the second one at Steve.</p><p>Natasha hopped over and swiped that one right out of his hand.</p><p>When he pulled out a third bag, Steve threw his hands in the air and stomped ahead to walk right beside Fury. Tony just let out a few loud laughs and opened up his snack. He glanced over at Loki and saw him smirking. Yeah, this was probably right up his alley. God of Mischief probably loved practical jokes.</p><p>If he could keep this up, maybe Loki really <em>would</em> help them.</p><hr/><p>“I’m assuming Thanos is gonna know something’s up,” Tony said before stuffing some dried cranberries into his mouth. Loki didn’t really reply. He just shrugged and continued eating. “I mean, they lost contact with you, right?”</p><p>“Most likely, they believe me dead,” Loki answered, looking way too bored and way too healthy for someone who just had his fucking back broken by the Hulk less than an hour ago.</p><p>The others were all sitting around with them, hoping Tony knew what he was doing. “Well, the reason I’m asking is, will his army still be waiting wherever the portal opens up if they have no way of knowing what happened to you?”</p><p>“The portal will open wherever his army is waiting,” Loki said, “Because that is where I will tell it to open.”</p><p>“All right, that works, I guess.”</p><p>“You guess?” Bruce let out a long-suffering sigh. “Tony, he said he could <em>tell</em> the portal where to open and you’re just rolling with it? I have never felt so useless in my life.”</p><p>“Aw, don’t be like that, Brucie Bear.” Tony clapped him on the shoulder. “The first time this shit went down, Fury had you tracking Loki and the Tesseract because nobody knows radiation like you do.” Bruce blinked at him. “Yeah, we wanted you for that big ol’ brain in your head. Not just the big green giant in your pants.”</p><p>“<em>Okay, Tony</em>,” Steve scolded him</p><p>Tony smiled then, turning to Selvig. “So, you think you can help us out?”</p><p>The man shrugged. “I can certainly give it a go.”</p><hr/><p>Loki didn’t help them at all. When Tony had asked, he had scoffed at him and went to sit down, taking the other food that Tony had brought with him.</p><p>“He’s eating all your snacks,” Bruce commented, glancing over at the god.</p><p>Tony sighed. “It’s fine. Thor always did the same thing.” He snickered a little as he remembered something. “There was one time, he ate seven large pizzas all by himself and when he found out Barton had eaten the eighth one, he wouldn’t talk to him for like two days.”</p><p>“Seven pizzas?”</p><p>“And he was still hungry!” Tony was grinning like an idiot.</p><p>Bruce gagged. “I feel sick just <em>thinking</em> about that much food.”</p><p>One of the others commented on the fact that Loki wasn’t helping. “Tony, you said we could trust him!”</p><p>“Did I say trust?” Tony looked up at them. “Sorry, what I meant to say was, we can be sure that as long as we don’t try and hug him, we <em>probably</em> won’t get stabbed.” Steve looked positively horrified by that, and his head snapped to look at Loki. Tony looked too and grinned when he saw Loki casually twirling a dagger between his fingers. Okay, so he was an asshole who didn’t want to help them, but at least he was funny. That had to count for something right?</p><p>“Tony, I really think he should be locked up,” Steve said. Tony noticed the annoyed look on Loki’s face when he said that.</p><p>“Okay,” he stood up and opened his arms. “Where? He took a Hulk beating and was still able to transport thirteen people a distance of sixty meters. Where <em>exactly</em> did you have in mind that could hold someone that can do that?”</p><p>“Fury has a cage on the helicarrier,” Natasha offered. Tony scoffed- <strong>loudly</strong>. “All right, look, I know you know everything, but the cage was made for--.”</p><p>“Hulk, I know,” Tony said, not even looking at her. He was lowering a few pieces onto the base of the portal they had already set up. He gave her a sad smile and then an even sadder one at Bruce. “It wouldn’t have held him, anyway. Hulk woulda crushed that thing like a tin can.”</p><p>Clint chose this moment to pipe up, waving an arm in Loki’s direction. “All right, well, none of that explains why he won’t help us!”</p><p>“Why should I?” Loki asked, frowning at them. “I am a god. Why should I help any of you?”</p><p>“Oh, so we’re just your little peons doing the dirty work so you can reap the benefits later?”</p><p>“Barton.”</p><p>“No, <em>fuck you, Stark</em>!” Clint pointed his finger at him and shouted at him. “You’ve been giving us all these fucking promises for <em>months</em> like we could actually believe a thing you say! And now when it’s time to own up- oh, <strong><em>surprise</em></strong><em>!</em> Tony Stark- wrong again!”</p><p>Scowling at the agent, Tony bared his teeth in a smile that absolutely <em>dripped</em> with disdain, and hissed out one word. “Laura.”</p><p>Clint punched him in the face.</p><hr/><p>They had officially called break time after that while Tony went to put ice on his quickly bruising black eye.</p><p>Bruce offered him a sympathetic pat on the back, Selvig offered him a bag of gummy worms, and they both left Tony to sulk on his own.</p><p>Loki had come up and taken the gummy worms from out of his hands. Tony just sighed and frowned up at him. “Look, <em>your highness</em>,” he grumbled, “I don’t know about how you were raised up in god land, but down here, it’s considered rude to take a gift from someone else.”</p><p>Loki ignored him. He took one of the candies out of the bag and looked at it. “What are these?”</p><p>“Sour gummy worms,” Tony answered. “And they’re not <em>yours</em>.” He watched Loki try one and then the god handed the bag back. “Are you really not gonna help us build this portal?”</p><p>“I never said I would,” Loki said, turning around to face him and lean back against a desk. “You came up with that little idea all on your own.”</p><p>“Even though we’re helping you get back at Thanos.”</p><p>“I see no reason to help any of you.” He had the dagger back out again. “I know nothing about any of you, or your plans. As far as I am concerned, the moment our task is done, our alliance is null and I owe you nothing.”</p><p>“Jesus, dude, not everything is a fucking political coalition.”</p><p>Loki was frowning at him and moving the dagger around to point at things as he spoke. “I’ve heard no less than twelve of you mortals threatening me with incarceration. Why should I help any of you, when you so obviously view me as a criminal and an experiment?”</p><p>And he had Tony there. What was he supposed to say to that? Sorry our people want to poke around your insides to see what makes you tick? Sorry people are afraid of you after you managed to kill three people within two minutes? It was almost as bad as trying to apologize to Bruce for being nervous about the Hulk.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Loki's still an a-hole, lol, but Tony kind of likes it  :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Point Break</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The thunderstorms were starting.</p><p>Tony was standing outside, listening to the rumble in the distance.</p><p>Bruce came outside. “Tony, what’s going on? You’ve been out here for like two hours and Loki’s suddenly stopped talking to us. He’s not even listening to what we’re say--.”</p><p>“Thor’s coming.” Tony turned his head to look at Bruce. “He knows it. Can sense it, probably. Go let Fury and the others know.”</p><p>“Wha…? Um, okay, I guess… But… didn’t you say Thor was on our side?”</p><p>He nodded. “He is, but he’s gonna be in a pissy mood when he gets here and he’s going to try and take Loki away just like last time.”</p><p>“All right, I’ll go get the others.” Bruce hurried back to base.</p><p>Cap, of course, was one of the first ones to rush outside. Tony wasn’t surprised. What <em>did</em> surprise him was how early Thor seemed to be. Had he really gotten to Earth that early the first time and he just wasn’t paying attention?</p><p>“Loki’s not coming out of the building,” Natasha said as she came to stand by his side.</p><p>Tony shrugged. “Can’t really blame him.” Thor had grabbed Loki by the throat the first time.</p><p>He really wished he had been able to stop that fight in New Mexico. Whatever happened really fucked things up between the two of them. Now that he thought about it, Thor never actually told any of them what happened. He had no idea what made Loki go from ‘Thor’s Little Brother’ to ‘Hey, Fuck You and Your Face.’</p><p>Well, no, he had a couple theories… The way that Loki seemed to get lost in his own head. The way he didn’t seem like he wanted to talk to anyone, let alone be around them. The tired look to his face even though his injuries were healed.</p><p>It felt eerily familiar to him. Wasn’t as obvious as being afraid of water, but he wasn’t hiding it as well as he led them all to believe…</p><p>He just couldn’t believe he had missed all the signs the first time around.</p><hr/><p>The thunder was booming and the lightning was flashing so much it should have come with a seizure warning when Thor finally touched down. Everyone was ready, suited up, and waiting for him, but that didn’t make it any less intimidating having him storm up to them.</p><p>“Where is Loki!?” His voice echoed around them.</p><p>Cap took a step forward and Thor noticed instantly. Tony put a hand on his shoulder. “Easy, Cap. Lemme try and talk to him, and if he doesn’t listen, then we fight him.” He really wished Loki hadn’t ripped the faceplate off of his suit.</p><p>“Loki’s with us,” Tony answered, taking a few slow steps toward Thor. “He’s safe and well and free of the mind control that--,”</p><p>Thor cut him off. “You think you’ve done me a <em>favor</em>?”</p><p>“No, I- Thor, I’m trying to tell you--,”</p><p>“You will release my brother now so that he may face Asgard’s justice!”</p><p>Tony wanted to roll his eyes. He held back, though. “Thor, we can’t do that. We need his help, and we can’t get it if you take him back to god land!”</p><p>Somehow, that managed to get through to him. He paused and gave Tony a quick once-over. “I do not know you, metal man- how do you know me?”</p><p>“I’m uh,” Fuck, think of something, you dumbass! “I’m an acquaintance of Jane’s.”</p><p>“You know Jane? How?”</p><p>“Science conventions. I’m an inventor.” He waved his hands at himself, hoping Thor would understand he meant the suit.</p><p>Thor looked hesitant. He was scanning their little group, probably calculating all the ways he could kick their asses. It took him about five seconds before he leapt at them. Motherfucking shit.</p><p>Between swings, Tony shouted to Cap to use the shield. It took four tries before Cap heard him.</p><p>When the metal of Thor’s hammer collided with the Vibranium shield, everyone got blown backwards and six of the tents got knocked over. Tony landed face-first on the ground, which probably wasn’t helping his black eye.</p><p>Groaning as he stood up, Tony did a quick look around. Naturally, everyone looked like hell. “Well, that was fun,” he grumbled, pushing up on his knees. “Let’s never do that again, shall we?”</p><hr/><p>The reunion between Thor and Loki went about as well as the first time. Thor had tried to go up and embrace Loki and Loki had pulled out a knife and threatened to cut his tongue out if he called him ‘brother’ one more time.</p><p>“<em>Okaaaayy</em>, why don’t we just put the pointy stabby things away and Thor you go over there and say hi to Agent Coulson, okay?” Shockingly, the two of them knew each other. Loki didn’t relax until Coulson took Thor and led him away from the group. Tony let out a long, slow exhale of breath. If they weren’t careful, Thor was going to fuck everything up for them. They didn’t need Thor triggering a fight or flight response.</p><p>“I’m gonna go get some food, you want anything?” Tony asked, clapping his hands together and trying <em>desperately</em> to diffuse some of the tension. Loki didn’t answer him, he just snarled and stalked off to an area as far away from Thor as he could get.</p><p>Thor really was going to fuck this up for them.</p><hr/><p>Tony was filling up two plates. One for himself, obviously, and one for Loki. If his theory about the god was correct, then… He piled a few different comfort foods onto his plate.</p><p>When he came back out to where everyone else was and set the second plate down in front of the god, Tony didn’t even notice if anyone was arguing or not. He was hungry. Food first. Loki blinked in surprise for a moment after he had plopped down with the food.</p><p>He was halfway through his own bite of lasagna when Loki finally picked up the plastic fork he had given him and poked at the food. With his mouth full, Tony pointed at the stuff on the plate, explaining, briefly, what each dish was. Loki made a tiny bit of a face at him, but Tony still didn’t stop to swallow his food between his words.</p><p>“How do I know this isn’t poisoned?” Loki asked, eyeing him suspiciously.</p><p>Tony rolled his eyes. “I’ve got like four of the same things on my plate. And anyway, if I’m poisoning anyone, it’ll be with my <em>own</em> cooking. Rhodey says I’ve never managed to cook something past half-edible.” He ate a few more bites and considered saying they still needed him to help with the portal. Decided against that, though, and motioned at the lasagna. “It’s good, you should try it.” He took a sip of water and said, “Not as good as Mrs. Rhodes’, granted, but we can only aspire to be as good a cook as her someday.”</p><p>During the little lunch break, Tony got a phone call from Pepper. He opened it up to a video, smiling. “Heya, Pep!”</p><p>She looked a little wary. “Hey. How are things going? Did you stop the alien thing yet?”</p><p>“Not yet,” he answered, “But things are going really well. Look, there’s Thor over there!” He pointed the phone so she could see him talking with Coulson and the others. Then he twisted the phone around and leaned closer to Loki so she could see him. “And this is Loki! Say hi, Lokes!”</p><p>Pepper frowned. “So… <em>this</em> is the guy you were talking about? The one you said almost destroys New York?”</p><p>“Well, not anymore,” Tony huffed. “Loki’s got a truce going with us right now!”</p><p>“Oh… Great…?”</p><p>“It <em>is</em> great!” Tony was all smiles. “Loki ate almost all of my snacks all by himself!”</p><p>“Even your blueberries?”</p><p>“Okay, not the blueberries. Those are mine. No one else can have them.”</p><p>Pepper smiled. “Thought so.” She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Well, uh… I guess, just… let me know how this all goes? I suppose if it goes bad I’ll be seeing it all over the news, but still. Call me, okay?”</p><p>“Will do!” And he hung up and went back to his food. He could physically feel Loki staring at him, but he chose to ignore it and shove some salad into his mouth. He wondered if he’d be getting a call from Rhodey later. Probably would.</p><p>After about fifteen minutes, Loki asked him where he had gotten the food from. Tony pointed over at the opening to the cafeteria area with a smile. Loki seemed nervous. “I can go get you some more,” he offered. “If you feel safer sitting over here, that is.”</p><p>“I am not threatened by you.”</p><p>Tony picked up Loki’s plate. “No? How ‘bout big brother, then?” Loki’s eyes were cold when they looked up at him. Probably hit a nerve, there. Maybe stop doing that, Tony. You still need him. Taking a deep breath, he asked, “What did you want more of?”</p><hr/><p>While Tony was bringing back Loki his <em>third</em> helping of food, Fury intercepted him. “Well, you seem awful chummy,” he said, walking as Tony scooped up more food.</p><p>“We need him to like us,” Tony told him. “You saw the teleporting thing. Believe me- he can do <em>a lot worse</em> than that.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, the eyeball thing, I remember. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, Stark. What I’m saying is, maybe if you get real buddy-buddy with Loki, we could use that.”</p><p>“What, to make more weapons?” Tony asked, smiling sharply. “Yeah, I know about those. Thanks, but no thanks, Nick. I’ve had enough of shit like that for two whole lifetimes.”</p><p>“Stark.” Fury stopped him at the exit of the cafeteria. “You’ve seen what these two can do. Hell, we’ve all seen it now. You realize how outgunned we are, don’t you?”</p><p>“Well, we always have Hulk.”</p><p>“And what if Hulk isn’t enough? What if we find ourselves up against an enemy like nothing we’ve ever seen before?”</p><p>Hearing him say that made Tony lower his hands and drop his gaze for a moment. He thought of everyone they lost. He thought of Peter. Of five years knowing that he couldn’t save him. That he was powerless to stop everyone around him from dying. His heart hurt.</p><p>“We already do,” Tony said, voice quiet. “None of us were ready. It didn’t matter how many of us there were. He was too far ahead and we were too scattered… We didn’t work together… We didn’t have a chance.” He let out a bitter laugh. “We even had Carol Danvers with us in the end, but by that point it was too late.”</p><p>When he looked back up at Fury, he saw how much he had frazzled him by saying that. “You knew Carol…?”</p><p>Tony nodded. “She saved my life. Brought me back home… But… She couldn’t bring back everybody we lost. None of us could… That’s why we were trying the time travel in the first place. To see if maybe we could go back and fix things.”</p><hr/><p>He set Loki’s food in front of him, only half noticing the unhappy scowl on Loki’s face. “No, we didn’t talk about locking you up,” he grumbled, “Since you didn’t ask.”</p><p>“No?” He was starting to eat again. “And then what did you talk about, hm?”</p><p>Taking a sip of his water, Tony replied, “Thanos.” Loki’s shoulders hunched and he only made a humming noise. Tony looked at him for a moment. “Did you ever meet Nebula?” Loki paused and raised a brow at him. “His ‘daughter’ with the blue skin and robotic enhancements.” He used air quotes on the word daughter, considering Nebula told him that Thanos had found her and taken her from her home.</p><p>“Oh… We did not speak…” Loki said, “But I did observe her visiting on his orders.”</p><p>“She’s pretty cool,” Tony hummed. “You’d probably get along. She likes knives, too.”</p><p>“There are very few I get along with.”</p><p>Tony smirked. “It’s hard making friends when you’re the smartest guy in the room, isn’t it?” He leaned closer to him and whispered, “The secret is to find people so scary that they don’t give a shit how smart you are or to find even more smart people.”</p><p>Loki rolled his eyes. “Ah, yes, of course, thank you for the advice.”</p><p>“Anytime, Rock of Ages.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:))))))))))))))))))))</p><p>yep.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Get Some Sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tony wasn’t even sure what triggered it, but he found himself sucked into a panic attack. They had just been in the middle of welding a piece of their portal and suddenly everything around them was gone and he was trapped in space.</p><p>Stuck inside that godforsaken space ship.</p><p>Running out of food. Running out of water.</p><p>Running out of air.</p><p>He couldn’t breathe! Oh, fuck, it was like the god damn cave all over again! He couldn’t breathe!</p><p>Air. Air!</p><p>He distantly felt like he could hear Thor shouting. Was that Thor? How did Thor get locked in the ship? No, Thor had been missing for years.</p><p>Oh, God, his throat was closing up.</p><p>He needed to get home! Pepper. Pepper was missing him. Earth needed him!</p><p>His eyes were looking out into the horrible emptiness of space and then. Suddenly they weren’t.</p><p>It took him a moment of blinking before he realized he was looking at a face. But… But it wasn’t Nebula…</p><p>“Loki?” Tony was still struggling to breathe. “When-,” a harsh, painful gasp for the air he couldn’t get, “How’d you get in here?”</p><p>When did Loki’s hand get on his forehead?</p><p>His hand was cold.</p><p>Space was so cold.</p><p>Space was so empty… But… But Loki- Loki wasn’t space. Loki wasn’t empty.</p><p>Loki wasn’t on the ship. Was <em>he</em> even on the ship?</p><p>He closed his eyes and brought his hands up to rub at them. “Oh, fuck…” He groaned and eventually raised his head back up. No. No, he wasn’t on the ship. He was on Earth. It was 2012. He still had six years before he would get stuck on that ship.</p><p>Loki was crouched down in front of him, just… looking at him. Slowly, Tony turned his head this way and that, looking and seeing everyone else crowded around him. “Uh… hi?”</p><p>“Tony, you weren’t breathing,” Natasha whispered, kneeling down next to him. “None of us could get you to wake up.”</p><p>Oh.... Fuck.</p><p>“So what happened?”</p><p>“Thor called Loki,” Bruce answered. Tony looked up at him for a second, then looked at the god.</p><p>Tony frowned. “You were in the ship…”</p><p>“I was in your head,” Loki corrected him, still just staring at him.</p><p>“Oh… well… thanks…” He had to look away. Loki’s staring was getting too intense for him. After swallowing for a moment, he mumbled, “I think I need to be alone for a minute…” And he pushed himself to his feet. He wobbled for a moment, saw everyone lurch forward- ready to catch him, and he basically ran back outside.</p><p>God, he was pathetic. Even after years of therapy- he still had panic attacks like that. What was wrong in his head that he couldn’t <em>stop them</em>?</p><hr/><p>He didn’t stay outside quite as long this time. He forced himself to go back inside and get back to work. If he didn’t, the others would worry about him. And he couldn’t have them worrying. They had bigger problems than his broken head.</p><p>Selvig was helping him screw a plate down on the portal, talking quietly about nothing as he did. It was oddly comforting.</p><p>Something moved in his peripheral vision and Tony flinched when he turned his head and found Loki right in his space. “Jesus,” he exhaled slowly. “Make a little noise next time. I have a weak heart, you know.”</p><p>Loki’s eyes flicked to his chest, probably noticing the glow of the reactor through his shirt, and then they came back up to look at his face. “You’ll need about three more of these layers,” Loki told him, pointing down at the plate they were screwing in.</p><p>He blinked and frowned down at the plate. “I thought we’d only need two.”</p><p>“To combat the heat of the Tesseract, you will need at least three,” Loki told him.</p><p>He groaned. “Oh, right, the last time you needed to reach like a million degrees Kelvin for this thing to work without it all shutting down. Fuck… Okay, well, we’re gonna need more of those pieces, then, Selvig.”</p><p>“Can do.” The scientist walked to the other end of the work area to grab what they needed. Bruce was molding the meteorite pieces they had into the shape they would need for the cooling center. And now Loki was actually telling him what he needed for where. It was weird how much faster things went when people worked together.</p><p>“If I remember right, the first time this took you about… five days to put together…” Tony was screwing something in while Loki held it in place. “With all of us working together, I think we’d probably get it finished in three.”</p><p>Off to his right, Tony could hear Thor on a video call with what sounded like a very angry Jane. It made him smile. Big guy was getting told off by his girlfriend for not calling her. Hashtag relatable.</p><p>And now he made himself sad.</p><p>Peter used to send him texts with shit like that written in them. Fuck…</p><p>He jumped a little when Loki jabbed his hand with the screwdriver he had just been holding. He looked at him, confused. “You are not holding your tool anymore, yet your hand continues to twist.”</p><p>Looking down, he stopped his hand. Jesus. He had been twisting a screwdriver that wasn’t even there anymore. Maybe he needed some sleep. He rubbed his palms into his eyes with a groan.</p><p>After that, Loki didn’t really help again. So much for that… That was okay, though. Everyone seemed to be winding down. Everyone was probably tired as fuck. Tony didn’t want to go to sleep, but this portal would probably suffer for it if he tried to work on it while he was so tired.</p><p>So, as everyone else was filing out of the room into the sleeping areas that Shield had set up, and to the helicarrier that landed at some point with all of its separate rooms, Tony pulled his suit over to a workbench and sat down to begin repairing some of the damage Thor and Loki did to it.</p><p>“Tony, you should get some sleep,” Natasha told him.</p><p>“Not until Rhodey calls,” he responded. It was a great excuse. Pepper had already called him- he could use Rhodey as a reason not to go to bed. He heard Nat sigh, felt her pat him on the back, and then he was alone with his suit again.</p><p>He had to have been working on it for at least a couple of hours before he heard a noise. He lifted his head and saw Loki walking toward him. “If you’re about to tell me to go to bed, you can save your breath.”</p><p>Loki stopped at the desk with the rough schematics for the portal. He was flicking through them on the touch pad. “Oh, no, by all means. Stay awake until the dawn.” He briefly looked at Tony, and then went back to the touch pad.</p><p>“I feel like you’re judging me,” Tony huffed, setting his tools down. “Do you <em>want</em> me to go to bed?”</p><p>Loki chuckled at him. “Do you wish to sleep?”</p><p>Sighing, Tony ran a hand through his hair. “Kinda? I mean, I <em>am</em> tired, but I usually only sleep for an hour or two before I have nightmares and wake up.” He tossed a scrap of metal between his hands. “It’s easier if I just let myself pass out from exhaustion.” Loki only nodded, smirking a little bit, and he sat down at the desk to keep going through files. Tony watched him for a minute before going back to fixing his suit. The patches he was using didn’t match the color, but that was okay. At least it wouldn’t have big ass holes in it anymore.</p><p>He stopped when his eyes were beginning to feel heavy. (It may or may not have started to become light outside when that happened.)  He set his tools down and was about to turn and tell Loki he was leaving to try and actually sleep, like a quitter, but stopped. Loki was still at the desk, but by his posture and the way his head was resting on top of his fist, Tony could tell immediately that he had fallen asleep. It was actually kind of cute… In a weird way. Thor’s easily agitated little brother had fallen asleep while reading. Then again, after Tony's time with the Ten Rings he once slept for eleven hours straight. If Loki <em>had</em> been tortured by Thanos, he was probably exhausted. He had never actually seen the god sleeping before. He didn't even snore! Thor snored so bad...!</p><p>Glancing around, Tony noticed that there were a couple of guards standing over near the entrance. Fuck. He couldn’t leave Loki alone with those guys. He’d probably wake up and immediately think they were there to watch him and lock him up. So… looks like Tony’s going to be sleeping at a desk tonight.</p><p>He managed to get a guard to grab him a couple of blankets, and before curling up on a chair with his head on a tabletop, Tony tossed one over Loki’s shoulders. Sighing and nuzzling his head into his own arms, Tony mumbled out, “Night, Lokes…”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>:)<br/>tony is a soft boi</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Breakfast</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>happy mother's day if you live in the US.</p><p>I have to go to work tonight.      sucks.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Surprisingly, Tony was not woken up by a nightmare. He was pretty sure he was hearing Thor’s voice as he woke up. He winced a little as he found his black eye completely swollen shut. And yeah, definitely Thor’s voice.</p><p>“Please, Loki,” he was saying as Tony came to. “We miss you. We would welcome you home. Please, just come home.”</p><p>Loki, in response, scoffed at him. “Welcome me <em>home</em>,” he snarled. “As if Asgard was ever truly my home.”</p><p>“Mother and father--.”</p><p>“He is <em>your</em> father,” Loki spat. Tony continued to pretend to sleep, but he listened closely. “Surely you were told of my true parentage, yes?”</p><p>“What does it matter?” Thor asked. “We grew up together. We played together and trained together! We are still brothers!”</p><p>“We are not.” Loki sounded angry. “I have grown beyond all that. No more am I the <em>weak, <strong>pathetic</strong></em>, fool you remember. I will not go back.”</p><p>“Loki…” Tony heard Thor step forward. “Surely there is still good in you.” Loki scoffed again. “Mother believes in you- and you saved that mortal!” (Tony would take insult to that on a different day.) “Surely you must still care!”</p><p>“<em>That mortal</em>,” Loki hissed, “Is the only reason I am still on this miserable <strong>rock</strong>. And once he has outlived his usefulness to me, I will leave.”</p><p>“So it’s true, then… Thanos-.”</p><p>Tony physically heard Loki surge forward. He could picture the knife being held to Thor’s throat. He raised his head, then, to stop the argument and saw the way Thor looked. Scared. (And yep. There was the knife to the throat. As he expected.)</p><p>Putting on a bit of a show by yawning and stretching his arms, Tony said, “No offense, guys- I’m sure you’ve got a lot to talk about, but it’s kinda hard to get any shut eye with all this yelling going on…”</p><p>Loki stepped away from his brother with a snarl. He stalked away from the desks and went over to the cafeteria. Thor was looking at Tony a little sheepishly. “My apologies,” he said. “I had forgotten you were there.”</p><p>Tony smiled. “Really? Nice, that means I wasn’t wheezing in my sleep this time.”</p><p>“How’s uh…” Thor waved a hand at his own face. “How’s the eye?”</p><p>“Oh.” Tony gently dabbed at it and winced. “Hurts… Probably need to ice it again.” Thor nodded awkwardly. He obviously wanted to follow his brother. Tony smiled again, but a little painfully this time. “Give him time,” he said, “From what I heard- the two of you make up in about five or six years.” That didn’t look like it cheered Thor up very much, but he nodded anyway.</p><p>He waited until he saw Loki exit the cafeteria area with a plate of food before he asked Thor, “You hungry?”</p><hr/><p>Thor was on his second plate by the time the others all started filing into the building. It really must have been around dawn when Tony woke up. “Did you actually sleep, Stark, or did you just pull an all-nighter?” Natasha asked him as she walked by.</p><p>“If you must know, I actually took a little cat nap. Pretty sure I got an hour and a half of real, genuine sleep!” She rolled her eyes at him and went to get some breakfast for herself. Tony sipped some of the mediocre coffee he had gotten for himself and smiled as the group slowly began sitting at various tables. Nat came and joined him, and of course Barton followed her. Cap sat with a couple of the other agents and Bruce joined him. Seeing everybody grouping up was kinda of weird, but nice.</p><p>It did make him pause, though, to look for where Loki had wandered off to. It wasn’t hard to find him. Just follow wherever Thor was looking off at sadly and you were basically sure to see Loki.</p><p>The god was sitting over at the work desks again. Tony couldn’t tell if he was eating or not. He looked like he was dying for some one-on-one Tony time, though. (Haha.)</p><p>“How’s it goin, Bambi?’ Tony asked as he made his way over to lean on the desk.</p><p>Loki looked up at him and immediately wrinkled his nose. “What are you drinking?” He asked.</p><p>“Coffee.”</p><p>“It smells vile,” Loki said, turning back to his plate of food.</p><p>Holding a hand to his heart, Tony said, “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just insult the one good thing in my life and ask you a question instead.” When Loki looked up at him with a brow raised, Tony asked, “How’d you sleep?”</p><p>Loki rolled his eyes and scoffed quietly. “Mm… I <em>had</em> been resting nicely until you threw that sheet on top of me.” He gave the blanket a pointed look.</p><p>“You’re a real light sleeper, huh?” Tony pouted. “Sorry… I thought you might get cold.”</p><p>“Why are you here?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>Loki was frowning at him. “You had previously been enjoying the company of my <em>brother</em>. Why are you here pestering <em>me</em> in his stead?”</p><p>Oooooh. Tony smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I just like your winning personality,” he teased, grinning when Loki frowned harder at him. “No? Not buyin’ it? All right, um… How about this then?” He set his coffee down. “You’re like- smokin’ hot.” Loki’s brows furrowed. “You know, attractive?”</p><p>“Oh.” Loki looked like he was going to roll his eyes again. “An odd phrase, that…”</p><p>“I could wax poetic about how your eyes are like gems and use five different descriptors about your figure, if you want,” Tony said, “I’ve read so many cheesy romance novels because of Pepper- some of them I’ve read that haven’t even been written yet!”</p><p>“I would really rather you didn’t.”</p><p>“Ah, you’re no fun.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>shorter one.<br/>but a cuter one.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. A Delicate Process</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I SEE YOU, PERSON ON TWITTER--- HELLOO!!!!!!!!    :3</p><p>thank you for quoting and recommending my fics to people!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Building the portal somehow devolved into Tony and Selvig doing the majority of the work while Bruce studied the Tesseract and Loki did circles around the building to avoid Thor. Every time any of the others tried to help, it ended up with arguments because they had no idea what they were doing.</p><p>“No, Clint, no. I know you wanna help, but the circle thing needs to be at a certain circumference. You can’t bend it.” Tony was trying to keep the archer from helping.</p><p>“You guys are taking too long!”</p><p>“It’s a delicate process,” Selvig told the man. “There’s a lot of volatile elements involved here. If we go too quickly, something very possibly could explode.”</p><p>“Well at least then something would be happening!” Barton was huffing at him. “I was expecting alien craziness!”</p><p>“That’s what happened the first time,” Tony said, “But you were part of the bad guy team then. The mind control stick, and all…” He heard Steve sigh and frowned at him. “Seriously, man? What is your problem with me? I didn’t even do anything to you this time!”</p><p>“I’ve read your file,” Steve said, frowning.</p><p>“Oh, God, not the fucking file again. We had this argument the <em>first time</em>.” He frowned at Captain America. “It ended when Loki had Barton shoot out the engines of the helicarrier.”</p><p>“I can’t shoot out engines with my arrows.”</p><p>“You used one to short circuit the engine controls,” Tony told him, “And then shit exploded and Hulk took out the second engine and Cap and I had to work together to fix one so we didn’t all die.”</p><p>Nat quirked a brow at him. “The two of you actually work together?”</p><p>“Yeah, after I call Cap an old man.” Tony smirked up at her. “And then Loki gets away and we all <em>think</em> his plan was to get us to split up because we hate each other, but it turns out his plan was to give us the push to realize that in order to win we have to put aside our differences.” He looked over at Loki, who had rejoined the group a little while ago. “Honestly, brilliant plan, really. You had all of us fooled.”</p><p>Loki looked like he was trying not to smile. Cap scoffed at him again. “Until I see this army you keep talking about, I’m not believing any of this.”</p><p>“You know- I didn’t wanna mention this until later, but—.”</p><p>“Would you prefer that <em>I </em>show you the army?” Loki asked and everyone’s heads turned to him. The dark, angry look in his eyes had everyone falling silent. “Perhaps you would be more inclined to <em>listen</em> if you had some <em>evidence, <strong>yes</strong></em>?”</p><p>In an instant, Loki had Steve slammed back into a table, hand pressed against his forehead. Everyone was jumping and scrambling to stop him. The sound of guns clicking and weapons being drawn was nearly deafening. Tony couldn’t understand what Loki was saying, all he knew was that his words were <em>spitting</em> with malice.</p><p>Using his suit, Tony managed to remove Loki’s hand from Cap’s face. He briefly noticed bruises already beginning to form in the shapes of his fingertips. He was pretty sure he could still hear guns cocking and people shouting, but he was focusing on using the thrusters to pull Loki away from the other man. He was almost surprised by how hard it was to manage. He already knew Loki was stronger than he looked.</p><p>“Loki, come on, it’s not worth it,” he tried saying, grunting a little as he tried to pull him back. He actually fell backwards when Loki spun around to snarl at <em>him</em> instead.</p><p>Loki was in his face, now. “<em>Do not </em>touch <em>me!</em>” He was holding another dagger again, pointing it directly at Tony. “I do not need <em>any</em> of you! Pathetic, useless, mortals!”</p><p>“Loki!” Fuuuck, Thor, no! Don’t help! Don’t try and help!</p><p>Before Loki could turn and round on Thor next, Tony grabbed hold of Loki’s wrist. Loki turned his head back, ready to shout more hurtful things at him, when they both heard a huff of air much too loud to be anyone but the Hulk.</p><p>“Fuck,” Tony swore, looking over Loki’s shoulder and seeing Bruce standing there, face going green and shirt beginning to strain and tear with his anger. Swallowing and glancing back at Loki, Tony said, “How ‘bout we all just… take five?”</p><p>“Maybe ten?”</p><p>“Let’s go for twenty.”</p><hr/><p>Tony ended up sitting outside next to Loki. He wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened. Steve had refused to even <em>look</em> at the god after what happened, and Loki moved away from Thor and Bruce so fast, Tony just ended up following him to make sure he wasn’t running away.</p><p>Both of them were obviously very tense after that happened. Neither of them had spoken since they sat on a partially broken bench. All of a sudden, Tony felt water hit his face and he <em>may</em> have violently flinched. Loki looked at him as he looked up. He let out a puff of air. “Oh, fuck. Just rain…” He didn’t exactly relax as it began to rain steadily on them, but he didn’t jump anymore.</p><p>“You are bothered by the water?” Loki asked, looking at him curiously.</p><p>Sighing, Tony nodded. “In 2008, I got kidnapped by mercenaries for months. They wanted me to make weapons for them, and when I said no…” Even after all this time, it was still hard to talk about it. He hadn’t been swimming since his time in the cave. Putting his head under water was hard. “You, uh… You ever heard of waterboarding? Or water torture?” Loki nodded once, but still looked confused. “They held my head under water, over and over again.” He was looking down at his feet as he told the god. The rain was beginning to chill him as it soaked through his clothes. He was thinking about going back inside.</p><p>Wait… Oh, the rain stopped? He looked up and noticed that, no, it was still raining. But above them it almost looked like a glass bubble. The rain was hitting something clear above their heads and running down it.</p><p>He looked over at Loki. “Are you doing that?” Loki didn’t answer, but it wasn’t like there was anyone else who could be doing it. He smiled at the god. “Thanks.”</p><p>“This storm is most likely being caused by Thor.”</p><p>Tony pouted. “Does he do that a lot?”</p><p>“He does not have sufficient control over his seidr. His emotions can influence the environment.”</p><p>“Oooh, so <em>that’s why</em> it was like a thunderstorm from hell when he first got here.” Tony nodded his head, finally understanding. “Makes sense.” He couldn’t help himself in his question he asked next. “So what happens when you get upset? Frogs rain from the sky?”</p><p>He was incredibly happy when Loki barked out a deep, loud laugh. He wiped a nonexistent tear from his eye as he chuckled. “No, that usually happens when I get bored.”</p><hr/><p>After two days together, the group dynamic was developing rather nicely. Steve and Natasha bossed everybody around, as expected. Clint and Thor got along talking about hunting things, and Thor and Steve both got on like a house on fire when comparing muscles and war stories. Bruce and Tony were science bros, as they should be. Selvig and Thor were drinking buddies. Any time they all took a break, the two of them could be found sharing a beer or three. Nat enjoyed Tony’s sense of humor and would hang out with him when he wasn’t working on stuff. Loki, though… Loki seemed like the only person he was willing to spend any time with was Tony. Any time Thor tried to insert himself, he would leave, and any time Tony was with one of the others he wouldn’t leave whatever he was doing. (Fury, of course, had noticed this and was still pressuring Tony to make nice with the guy.)</p><p>The portal was very near completion at this point. They were doing test runs and making sure nothing fell apart before they even put the Tesseract inside.</p><p>Loki was most helpful late at night when everyone else was in bed. When it was just him and Tony left, he was much more willing to help with the portal.</p><p>Tony, of course, could not resist teasing him about this fact. It was the third night leading in to the fourth day, and as Loki was squatting down to help, he asked, “Do you just like me best?”</p><p>“If you start, I will not hesitate to leave.”</p><p>“You really are no fun.” He pouted at Loki again, but got back to work on the portal.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>having a day off is so nice.</p><p>getting to relax is great</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I should be sleeping! But I was hit with a need to create. And so! We Have! A Thing!<br/>Comments and suggestions are appreciated!</p><p>Hope you enjoy whatever this turns into!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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